


A New Romantic

by saizine



Category: Whitechapel (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Case Fic, First Kiss, First Time, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-02
Updated: 2014-01-06
Packaged: 2018-01-02 18:23:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 106,093
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1060058
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saizine/pseuds/saizine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Neither of them are very good at this, but they’re fairly competent people. They catch killers for a living, after all. It can’t be that much more difficult.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Written between May and November 2013.
> 
> Many thanks to everyone in this lovely, lovely fandom! You're all brilliant. :)

 

  


 

He hears Miles before he sees him, which, in itself, is not out of the ordinary.

Exactly what he’s shouting isn’t unusual, either, and for that reason Kent doesn’t as much as flinch when the doors to the incident room are flung open. It’s the flash of red on Chandler’s face that attracts his attention. 

‘Sir—!’ he yelps, and he hasn’t even had a chance to push his chair away from his desk when Miles is shouting again. The files he’s been balancing between his lap and the desk splatter over the floor, too, and before Kent can stop it there’s a carpet of insurance claims around his feet. 

‘You imbecilic _prat_!’ Miles spits, though not at Kent. Even from where he’s crouched he can tell that was directed at their very own Detective Inspector. ‘You can’t just waltz on into a suspect’s house and interrupt their business luncheons!’

‘Well, business luncheon’s a bit generous, don’t you think?’ Chandler’s voice betrays how pleased with himself he is, and Kent tries to ignore how it sends a gentle shiver down his spine. He’s given up trying to stop it from happening at all. ‘It was more like three stale sandwiches and a vat of stewed tea.’

‘Oh, piss off!’ Miles says as he walks over to his desk. Kent can see his shoes from the gap under the furniture. There’s a pause, and then, ‘Sir.’

Kent imagines the smile before he sees it, and when he decides that there’s no pressing reason to make sure all the edges of the papers line up, he reappears from beneath his desk and, well, it’s even better than he remembered. It always is. God, how can someone look so attractive with their own blood spilling across their face? It shouldn’t be possible. It shouldn’t be allowed. Kent has enough trouble keeping his thoughts in control when Chandler’s put together, all combed hair and pressed suits, for there not to be any respite when he’s been roughed up. 

He’s about to say something when Riley walks in, clasping a box of Buchan’s files. They already have three, shoved underneath Mansell’s desk, and her face says more than words can about her feelings on the subject. Nevertheless, they humour him, although they’d never expected to be on the receiving end of such a extensive portrait of automobile-related crime throughout Britain and the continent. There were whispers of expanding to the Americas, and maybe it was that more than anything that made Chandler go on the warpath.

In any case, Riley ignores the arrival of their superiors and deposits the box on her desk with a resounding thump. She stands next to it with her hands on her hips for a moment, as if expecting it to do a trick. Kent wouldn’t be surprised if a mouse wriggled out, one day. Buchan would probably keep them on as the assistants he’s been longing for.

She gives up on the files, and wanders over to stand by Kent’s side, gazing down at the forms that litter the surface of his desk. ‘How are the insurance claims coming? Any of them squealing yet?’

Kent raises his eyebrows and nods towards where their boss is leaning heavily against the nearest desk.

She glances at him when she doesn’t get a verbal answer, and follows his smirking gaze. ‘Oh, my God. What happened?’

Miles picks something up from the tip on top of his desk—a pen, probably, though why he needs it isn’t particularly obvious—and waves it in Chandler’s general direction. ‘This tall pillock decided to startle a large group of villains and provoke an all-holds-barred scrap.’

Riley grins. She’s seen enough blood and gore that her boss arriving in the office with a rough-looking nosebleed isn’t a reason for panic. ‘So you’re rubbing off on him then, skip?’

The older officer grumbles something that’s undoubtedly supposed to sound disparaging, but it doesn’t work. They all grin, Chandler included  (although the blood slips perilously close to the corner of his mouth), and Miles turns from one to the next with a scowl.

‘You’re all idiots,’ he says, but there’s no venom behind it, and there might even be a hint of a smile.

Chandler’s eyes are bright, too, despite the darkening bruise around the left one. Even so, it’s the deep scrape that makes Kent’s chest constrict, the one that tells a tale of metal on skin. A ring, probably, on a thrown fist, one not unlike the one that graces Chandler’s hand. He’s obviously held something to it in the car because the blood’s smeared across his cheek, but new crimson keeps creeping across his skin.

‘I beg to differ, Miles,’ says the boss as he shrugs off his coat, and when he gets to peeling off his suit jacket, Kent has to distract himself with the scanner he’s just finished installing. Just as he thinks it’s safe, the waistcoat comes off, and the manila folder near his left wrist is terribly, terribly fascinating.

‘Yeah, well, you would,’ Miles mutters, and as he shifts his gaze to rest on Kent, the young man is convinced that the heat on the inside of his skin (embarrassment, by his own diagnosis) is the last bit of evidence the team would need to feel justified in the inevitable, merciless jibes about how he feels about their DI.   

‘Kent, go and get him mopped up,’ Miles continues, jerking an extended thumb over his shoulder towards where Chandler stands folding his discarded clothes. ‘He’ll be no use, he’s had all his sense knocked out of him.’

Kent nods and catches Chandler’s eye, and if he smiles a bit as well, nobody else notices.

‘Mansell, with me.’

The summons is the first bit of good news the older constable’s received all day, and he relinquishes his part of the paperwork slog with a sly grin. Kent can’t—doesn’t—blame him for jogging out the doors after Miles’ retreating footsteps. He was starting to think that the only thing more boring than filling in insurance claims was reading them.

Riley pushes the sleeves of her dark cardigan to her elbows with the sort of relish reserved for a particularly well-deserved breakthrough. ‘Guess I’d better get cracking on these, then?’

She doesn’t wait for either of them to reply and in the space of a second she’s balancing two boxes against her hips, one under each arm. Another second passes and she’s making a beeline towards the stairs, jostling one or two uniform officers as she goes. None of them mind; the cheeky grin on her face is enough.

Then Kent is left standing behind his desk with nothing to do except watch the old blood congeal around his boss’s nostrils. His initial instinct is to do something, _anything_ , to occupy his hands before he turns that particularly telling shade of red. Chandler wouldn’t miss that, even if had did seem to manage to miss everything else. Kent’s always been quiet though, even with the team, so the fact that no sound was coming out of his throat easily wasn’t entirely due to the lingering grin on Chandler’s face. No, definitely not. Not _that_.

He’s just about wrapped his head around the idea that he’d been given an order when Chandler addresses him. ‘Kent—’

‘I’ll just—’ Kent fills in, covering any inquiry with the words that he could only keep at the front of his mind for a minute and a half. ‘I’ll just go and get the kit, sir.’

This is, apparently, suitable enough for Chandler because he leans back from where he’d stood, bent, to talk. Kent is grateful—thankful—for the space as he pushes through it, and if he takes a deeper breath than normal when they’re chest-to-chest, then that’s his business, isn’t it?

*

‘D’you want me to scrub up, sir?’

‘What?’

Kent’s voice has a degree of humour to it that doesn’t quite align, and Chandler leans against a sink despite his better judgement. He wouldn’t have done it at all, but there’s blood threatening to dribble down the collar of his best work shirt and that supersedes things, doesn’t it? He’s not even sure that the ceramic can bear his weight, and he doesn’t even want to know what sorts of things are on the floor, but he does it because he has to. 

He turns his head to watch Kent’s hands, forearms, elbows under the running water. His sleeves have already been rolled up, neat and tucked, to above his elbows; he’d got rid of his jacket long before they’d come anywhere near the toilets. It’s just as well, really, even though Kent’s shirt is dark—grey—and the tie is as close to black as fabric could be. Chandler can’t help but become more and more aware of the slow, warm trickle over his skin, the throbbing on top of his nose, the tenderness of his jaw. Then there’s the release of adrenaline, slipping away. Control in the chaotic, losing it in the mundane.

His hand goes to pinch the bridge of his nose, applying the pressure that normally dulls the edges of a headache, but his fingers come away damp and flinching. ‘ _Shit_.’

‘Here, sir,’ says Kent’s voice from somewhere much further right than he’d expected.

Chandler wipes the blood away with the paper towel, frowning at his own hands. It should be worrying, really, that it’s his hands that bother him more than the sharp shooting pain down his face, but it’s all just distraction in the end, isn’t it? 

‘Look at me for a moment,’ Kent says as he ducks his head to bring it level with Chandler’s.

Chandler knows what Kent’s doing. He should—he knows all the handbooks, after all. First aid is one that he reviews fairly often, just in case. He may have even done a course, once, when he was much younger, but they all blur together a bit. In any case, basic first aid is a requirement for all police officers, and Kent’s always struck Chandler as someone who’d finish his homework. Head trauma—especially repeated, as he was used to experiencing—can result in differently sized pupils, indicative of more a serious injury than a black eye. A fractured skull, in fact. So that was why Kent was peering at him, all dark irises and wide-eyed. Open, warm. His eyes were large, really, for the rest of his face.

Kent steps back just as Chandler realises the direction his thoughts have taken him. ‘Right, well, I don’t think you’ll be keeling over in the interim.’

Chandler reckons he could have just told him that. ‘It’s a relatively old wound at this point.’

The corners of Kent’s mouth twitch. ‘Just another in the line of bad knocks to the head, sir?’

‘Everyone’s got to collect something, haven’t they?’

Kent laughs, then, a short chuckle that brings a brief smile to Chandler’s face. The slip of fresh blood reappears, though, and he can’t quite hold off the scowl as he mops his cheek. The constable lets him get on with it, even if he’s a bit rougher than strictly necessary. By the time Chandler is satisfied that the job’s done, Kent is holding two fingers under a running tap, presumably waiting until it’s warm. Perhaps not warm, exactly, but enough to take the arctic edge off. 

‘What exactly happened, sir?’

Chandler’s still wondering why— _why_?—Kent is bothering to take so much care with him when he finally realises he’s been asked a direct question.

‘We went to go and have a chat with Stoker,’ he began, dabbing at the blood that had been pooling above his top lip, ‘and happened upon what I  suppose you could call an organizational meeting. We only had to knock on the door before the lot of them had decided to make a last-minute break for it. One barreled straight into me, another went straight into Miles, and before long I’m tasting blood—’ Chandler’s lip curls involuntarily in the pause. ‘—and there’s a load of uniforms in the back garden.’

‘Case closed, then?’

‘Should be. A couple of them managed to slip away but the rest are lounging in holding cells as we speak.’

Kent smiles, wide and giddy, as he removes his fingers and replaces them with the cloth in his hand. ‘Nothing like a bit of right place, right time policing.’

‘Don’t say that to Miles. He’ll have your hide.’

‘The higher-ups love it. Easy arrest, no-fuss trial, certain result.’

Chandler ignores the implied question only because he’s never been certain of the answer. Kent doesn’t continue, only pulls the white flannel from underneath the clear water spewing from the tap and wrings it out between his hands. When the damp, cool fabric meets his skin, it should be a respite from the throbbing in his jaw and the dull heat of injury. It is, in a way, because Kent’s careful movement is much more controlled than his own pawing would be, if he’d been left to his own devices, but it’s awkward. Chandler doesn’t mind, but it’s _awkward_. 

It’s awkward because he doesn’t mind and is self-aware enough to know it.

When the younger officer leans away from his boss’ head and rinses the flannel in another stream of water, Chandler can’t help but let his gaze follow. The water runs clear—he hadn’t been bleeding enough to soak through anything as thick as a towel—but there’s a viscous warmth spreading over the bridge of his nose that’s pointedly unwelcome. 

Kent eyes the cut, the one Chandler knows is there but hasn’t properly seen yet. His brow furrows slightly, ever _so_ slightly, and Chandler wonders if he’s ever missed that expression before. ‘It should have stopped bleeding so much by now.’

Chandler resists the urge to shrug. ‘I probably disturbed it.’

‘Mmmhm.’

There’s something in Kent’s voice that Chandler knows shouldn’t be there. He’s known, of course. But until that moment, he hasn’t really understood what it means, has he? The concern in the small sound in his throat goes further than that of a teammate. It always does. This isn’t the first time. The flicker of Kent’s eyes towards him while he soaks a second cloth in antiseptic won’t be the last, either. It should concern him, as his superior officer. It really should, except it doesn’t, and it might even do something else entirely. But that’s something else that Chandler ignores because he doesn’t really know what to do with the inevitable conclusion. Instead, he just watches, and waits, and expects the entire thing to resolve itself with minimal fuss. Time would sort it out—eventually—he hopes, because he’s really not suited to resolving these sorts of things.

But the more he thinks, the closer Kent’s getting with that antiseptic, and he barely notices when the constable’s deft fingers press fabric onto the bone of his nose. Chandler hisses before he’s had a chance to smother the sound.

‘ _Sorry_ , sorry—sir.’

He manages to choke out, ‘It’s all right,’ before there’s another strong twinge and his eyes are shut.

Kent makes a sound in the back of his throat as he lifts the corner of the cloth before pressing it down again. ‘It’s a bit deeper than I thought.’ 

Chandler makes the appropriate face, with raised eyebrows and a slightly nonchalant curve to his mouth. It’s the best he can do in the face of the stinging and the corrosive smell that’s actually making his eyes sting and the fact that Kent’s looking at him with such misplaced concern. The attempt feels incredibly feeble and transparent. It passes muster, though, and Kent switches hands to keep the cloth in contact with the broken skin, and folds another damp piece of gauze into a small rectangle.

He places it over the one soaked in antiseptic, gently pinching the bridge of Chandler’s nose. ‘Lean forward a bit, sir, just in case your nose starts bleeding again.’

‘How’d you—?’ Chandler asks, as he does what he’s told.

‘I live with a nurse.’

‘Oh.’ It’s the only response that feels appropriate.

Kent presses forward, filling their silence. ‘I’ve been in your position loads of times. This is one of the more familiar routines.’

Chandler’s not really thought about Kent’s flatmates before. In passing, yes, when he’s mentioned them but they all sort of amalgamate into a single entity with several names. It’s odd, in the same way it’d been odd to imagine that his teachers had wives and children of their own. It isn’t as if he doesn’t know, and it’s not like he hasn’t been round Miles’ far more times than he’d think was expressly necessary. It’s not like he’s never seen Kent or any of the others outside of the office.  They all have lives outside of work—well, okay, maybe he doesn’t but the rest of them definitely do—so where does ‘his’ come into it? His office, his sergeant, his team, his officers. That there might be other denominations of belonging (‘This is Emerson Kent, he’s _my_ flatmate,’ for example) seems expressly foreign.

‘Are you all right, sir?’ 

Kent’s still holding the cloth to the bridge of Chandler’s nose. He can’t quite wrap his head around why he’d been comfortable enough not to notice.

‘Yeah—yeah, fine. Fine.’

‘In that case, sir, I think you’ll survive. Even if you have experienced my cack-handed version of first aid.’

‘No, no, it was—’

Kent somehow manages to cut him off without using words. Instead, he lifts the corner of the cloth again and peers at the underside; Chandler has the distinct feeling that he should be quiet. He’s not sure why. Maybe it’s the way Kent’s mouth thins before he smothers that particular involuntary reaction with a lighthearted expression that isn’t quite complete.

‘Go on, hold that there,’ he says, and he relinquishes control of the cloth to Chandler’s larger hand.  ‘You’re going to have a few nasty bruises in the morning, but there’s nothing we can do about those, I’m afraid.’

‘It won’t be the first time I’ve come into work looking like I’ve had a run-in with a blender.’ 

Kent smiles. Chandler does, too, after a moment, and he can’t quite believe it.

‘Thank you, Kent,’ he says as he gets back on his feet.

‘Just doing my job, sir.’

Except it isn’t, is it? His job. Not really.

‘Even so.’

‘Oh, hold on, sir—’ Kent says briskly, with the sort of staccato timing that usually accompanies sudden revelations, as he reaches behind him to retrieve one of the damp cloths.

Chandler’s glad to see he chooses a corner that’s not already stained pink, though there’s none of the dread he expects, and it’s that stunning thought that keeps him still as Kent reaches up and wipes at what he can only assume is dried blood on his cheek that they missed the first time. It’s such an engrossing conundrum—the lack of compulsion—that Chandler lets Kent tip his face to the opposite side with his thumb and forefinger. He knows what Chandler would do, and funnily enough, Chandler trusts Kent—trusts him to do his job for him. If that’s not intimate, nothing is.

They’ve been that way for a while, haven’t they? Chandler hasn’t noticed, and for a heart-stopping second, he wonders if Kent has. Probably. He’s not stupid. Neither of them are. That’s terrifying, isn’t it? The idea that someone’s had the same thought as you have.

‘You should be all right now,’ Kent says, pulling Chandler away from his thoughts.

‘Right.’

‘Just try not to drip on the paperwork.’

Kent directs his twitching smile more towards the first aid kit than anything else, but Chandler grins despite himself. At least, until there’s an uncomfortable, sticky stretching over his damaged nose, and it’s at that point that he decides bowing out would probably be the best option. It’s safer—on all fronts—in his office.

And he’s getting a headache.

*

By the time he’s back in the incident room, Chandler’s looking for a reason to return to the men’s toilets—and he’s rather certain that ‘helping Kent tidy up’ won’t cut it. He would have just slipped out of the bustling room to find somewhere, _anywhere_ , with a bit of peace suitable for thinking if Mansell hadn’t bumped into him on his way in. 

‘Boss—Buchan’s getting overzealous again.’

Chandler peers at the file box in the officer’s hands around the hazy edges of gauze that obscure his vision. ‘I’ll have a word with him.’

Mansell rolls his eyes. ‘Have you considered giving him something to _do_ , sir?’

‘He’s got plenty to do.’

‘Have you considered giving him something to do that doesn’t result in _us_ having far too much to do?’ 

Chandler’s nose twinges as he pinches it just a little too hard. ‘I’ll—I’ll sort it out.’

Something about his face must underline his words, because Mansell nods and pushes past him, towards the lifts. The door clicks shut behind Chandler as he checks if he’s stopped bleeding—he’s not—and it’s only with a dismayed sigh that he walks through the group of DCs gathering the research paraphernalia that covers every desk in the office. Anything that would be relevant in court has already been catalogued and removed; Chandler can only hope that nothing goes missing and they don’t have to recreate the time when he and Miles spent the majority of a Friday evening trawling through piles of paperwork to find one misplaced form. Even Chandler’s insistence on organization and cleanliness can’t fix the danger zone that is Whitechapel Police Station’s filing system.

Chandler’s still trying to gather his thoughts when he eases himself into his chair. The headache’s arrived in earnest, there are aches creeping into muscles he’s not used in years and his jaw probably won’t even be able to manage toast in the morning. Even so, he fishes his phone and pen out of his discarded jacket pocket and spends a good minute awkwardly undoing his watch just so he can line them up, side-by-side, on his desk. It helps—a bit. It helps just enough to stop him from snapping at Miles when he charges in. 

‘You look terrible,’ is the greeting, and Chandler grimaces through it.

‘Thanks, Miles.’

‘You’ll cheer up once we’ve got a pint down you,’ Miles continues, setting a pile of folders down on his side of the desk and sinking into the closest chair. ‘They’ve all been cautioned and charged. One of the younger ones has even ratted out Stoker.’ 

Chandler straightens the manila folders with his free hand. ‘Has he agreed to give evidence?’

‘Riley’s working on that.’

‘Right. What else have we got?’

‘Apart from no free rooms and several baseless accusations of serious violent assault? A case not far from closed, in my opinion. Stoker and both his right hand men are downstairs. The one you thought was his—what was it, sort of protegé?—he managed to get over the garden fence but we’ve got some uniforms combing the area. He can’t have got far, and one of the other lads reckons he knows his local—’ 

Chandler lets Miles continue to fill him in, although he’s only half listening. It’s not like he’s not going to read the files himself later on. He eases the fabric off his nose as gently as he possibly can, and although it sticks slightly, it comes off and he doesn’t end up with a fresh rivulet of blood down the side of his face. Another tentative dab and Chandler’s sure that bar any extreme nose scrunching, it’ll be fine. Or, at least, he hopes it will. He’s never been any sort of expert on these things. Even so, he’s confident enough to lean over and slide the soiled gauze into the closest bin. It’s when he leans up and glances through the glass in his office door that the feeling evaporates to something much less self-assured. Kent’s come back into the incident room, and as he places the insurance details in alphabetical order by surname, he manages to catch Chandler’s eye.

It’s the quiet little smile playing on Kent’s mouth that will haunt him for days.

(It won’t be the first time.) 

*  


Chandler hasn’t come to any sort of conclusion by the time he’s standing outside Miles’ front door, and it’s a week later. He’s normally much quicker than that, but it had taken more brainpower than he’d expected to decide on bringing a bottle of Chateauneuf-du-Pâpe and a fluffy white rabbit that he supposes is endearing. He’s more confident about the wine than the soft toy. After all, what business does he have attending someone’s first birthday party? There isn’t much space in his brain left for contemplating what could very well be a nonexistent problem when there’s a nonsensical social gathering to get through first.

He’s almost convinced himself that it’s entirely normal to attempt to ring someone’s doorbell with your elbow when a silhouette appears, diluted by the mottled glass. Chandler can tell it’s Miles, even without the over-exaggerated shake of the head he gets for his efforts. In any case, he’s just pleased he doesn’t have to wrestle with any more doorbells or door handles or doorknobs. At least not external ones, anyway. 

Miles twists the inside lock and pulls the door open. ‘Good, you’re here. Our lot arrived half an hour ago and we’re already running low on drink.’

Chandler feels like he needs a drink sooner rather than later, preferably with a high vodka to mixer ratio. Then again, if he thinks about the reason why he’s itching to have his hand wrapped around a highball glass, it would probably be best if he doesn’t. He might get ideas. He’s getting them already. He’d had a week to get his mind under control, since they’d had no cases that had taken more than a few hours to clear up, and yet he couldn’t do it. Between Kent and the wine and the gift and the paperwork, he’d maxed out. He’d scrubbed the kitchen twice. He’d had to go out for another tub of Tiger Balm, and hadn’t _that_ been an outing. 

‘You’re not having a wobble, are you?’ 

Chandler frowns. ‘What?’ 

His sergeant just looks at him. 

‘No,’ Chandler says, though it comes out a little more forcefully than he’d like. ‘Of course not.’

Miles eyes him carefully, then steps back from the door. ‘Come in, then.’ 

Chandler obeys, holding out the bottle as he crosses the threshold. Miles relieves him of it and peers at the label as he shuts the door; Chandler can’t quite relax until he hears the click of the latch. Riley catches sight of him from where she’s sat in the living room, and raises a hand in smiling greeting; Kent mumbles what Chandler can only assume is a hello as he steps out of the kitchen.

‘Nice red,’ Miles says as he appears at Chandler’s side. 

‘Mmm.’

(Miles doesn’t need to know he’d got through an entire bottle on his own the night before.) 

‘Good of you.’ 

Chandler doesn’t answer, and he doesn’t have to because another guest catches Miles’ attention. He excuses himself with a brief grumble—one of Judy’s friends from book club, he says, not sure why she’s even here—and leaves Chandler and Kent in the hallway. They don’t say anything, although Chandler feels like he probably should. Kent had looked like he’d been on his way somewhere before he’d been halted by his arrival. Granted, it was probably just to the living room and by the way Riley’s cackling Chandler doesn’t want to get any nearer either, but even so. He’d interrupted, hadn’t he?

He’s just opening his mouth to say something predictably inane when Mansell appears out of a side door with a face like thunder. 

‘Mansell!’ he exclaims, glad for the obvious distraction. ‘I wouldn’t have thought this was your sort of thing.’ 

‘It’s a decent excuse for a booze-up, sir,’ Mansell explains, tipping the bottle in his hand in a mock toast. 

Kent’s voice is a welcome murmur from Chandler’s right. ‘Though it’s not like he needs a _decent_ excuse at all…’

The flick of the two-fingered salute from Mansell’s retreating wrist elicits such a satisfying smile from Kent’s face that Chandler doesn’t even mind that he’s still stood there, in the hall, clasping a stuffed rabbit.

‘What’s the name of the woman he’s going out with now?’ Chandler asks, head inclined.

Kent’s watching him out of the corner of his eye as he sips from the bottle in his hands. He swallows quickly in order to answer. ‘Sophie.’ 

Chandler straightens. ‘You’ll have to point her out to me.’

‘She’s the one with the bright pink drink, sir,’ Kent says, cocking an eyebrow as he raises the lager to his mouth. ‘You really can’t miss it.’

He must recoil, because Kent just looks at him and smiles.

‘I suppose it’s not _that_ pink.’ 

‘If it’s pink, it’s pink enough.’ 

‘I take it you’re not so keen on rosé.’

Chandler tries to find an answer but none seem to come to mind while Kent watches him with his head tilted back against the wall. Luckily Judy shares Miles’ impeccable sense of timing and appears out of the kitchen just before Chandler manages to render himself tongue-tied.

‘Joe!’ she says with a wide smile. ‘We were starting to think you weren’t going to come at all.’

She envelops him in a brief hug, and Kent slinks away. Chandler tries not to think about how his eyes follow the back of the constable’s head; he focuses on smoothing the front of his sweater instead. It doesn’t really work—soft knits are never quite crisp enough when he’s in these moods—but it gives him something to do with his hands until he remembers he’s delivering a gift.

‘Tell Millie happy birthday, from me.’

She takes the rabbit from his outstretched hand, and tweaks a paw. ‘Aw, Joe, it’s lovely. Thank you—and you can tell her yourself, in a bit.’

He grins, but his bruised cheekbone protests. ‘Sorry about my face. It’s a mess, I know, I’ll keep out of the way of your pictures.’

‘Don’t be silly! You’ll be useful. When Ray’s too ancient to threaten Mille’s dates, we’ll whip you out.’

Miles shoots her a disbelieving glance as he searches the drawers for a corkscrew. ‘Yeah, he’s all sorts of threatening. Just waltzes up to a would-be Kray and decides to have a boxing match. Pounces on unassuming serial car thieves at lunchtime.’

Judy beams. ‘Brilliantly intimidating, don’t you think?’

‘Brilliantly dense,’ Miles grunts as he extracts the cork and hands the open bottle to his wife.

‘They don’t know that,’ she says, convinced. The empty glasses in front of her fill one by one. ‘They just know there’s a six-foot-two policeman hovering around and there’s pictures of him at Mille’s first birthday having recently expertly dealt with a group of delinquents.’

‘If she brings any delinquents home—’ 

Chandler accepts the glass of wine Judy offers him, and cradles it in his hand. He’s glad for the heavy leather of the liquid, the warmth and the depth. It gives him something to think about that’s not his colleagues or his work or his life. His _feelings_ , like those had ever done him any good. He’s glad for Miles’ ranting too, although he’s about fifteen years too early to be worrying about his daughter’s taste in boys, because Miles on a bit of a rant is normal and _god_ , he needs normal. He’s perfectly happy to stand there, nurse his glass of wine, and listen. That’s easiest—the least problematic.

‘Have you seen this?’ Judy asks, ignoring the tail end of Miles’ puffing and blowing.

The detective inspector glances over his shoulder, following her line of sight. ‘What?’

‘Ed.’

Chandler’s heart sinks. ‘What’s he done now?’

Judy wrinkles her nose. ‘Nothing! He’s lovely, look!’

They peer around the edge of the archway that opens into the sitting room, and it’s soon clear what they’re supposed to be looking at. Millie giggles gleefully, balanced on Riley’s knee, as Ed narrates some sort of impossible story that even had smiles playing on some of the adults’ faces.

‘He’s got a flair for the dramatic,’ says Chandler around a growing smile.

‘Yeah, the sort of dramatics that makes everyone over the age of seven heave.’

‘Miles—’

The older detective raises a hand, dismissing Chandler’s admonishments. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’ll give you that. He’s an alright sod.’ 

Chandler shrugs, but he’s still smiling. ‘I suppose that’s the best I’m going to get.’ 

‘It’s the best _I’ve_ heard of him yet!’ Judy says, nudging her husband into the adjoining room with her free hand.

*

He lasts forty minutes. It would have been longer if he hadn’t managed to be quite so efficient in shooting down all of Ed’s plans for adding an assistant to the archive. By the time the researcher moves on to his ill-fated ideas for expansion, Chandler’s glad to pass him off to Sophie—who, it turns out, is an archivist herself. Ed’s thrilled, and Chandler retreats.

He manages to wrestle down a growing sense of unease until Judy’s sister catches him while he’s en route to the relative solace of the kitchen. She plants herself in his path, one hand latched around a flute of cava and the other hovering uncomfortably near his sternum. There’s nothing to do except to accept his fate.

‘Hello again.’

‘It’s—Joe, isn’t it?’ she asks, but there’s a smile on her face that suggests she most definitely hadn’t forgotten his name.

‘Mmhm.’

He doesn’t ask after her name; she doesn’t notice the implication.

‘It’s nice to see you again, we didn’t get to chat much at the christening—’

Chandler answers too quickly. ‘No, no, we didn’t.’

‘—and it’d be lovely to get to know each other a bit more, don’t you think?’

His eyes flicker from her overeager face to the open archway that seems much farther away than it actually is, and there’s no honest answer to give. She doesn’t seem to need one, though, as she launches into what could be termed a verbal autobiography. Chandler simply polishes off what’s left of his drink and nods when appropriate. It’s when she’s detailing her work schedule and lays a hand on his arm that he panics. It’s not even the contact itself, nor the noticeable flinch that bothers him; it’s the fact that he hadn’t done it a week ago, when he’d let Kent get much closer and not minded. When he hadn’t felt the need to excuse himself and talk himself down, when he hadn’t wanted to extricate himself as quickly as possible. It’s a terrifyingly indisputable thought.

Chandler covers the recoil by shoving his empty glass onto the closest side table and digging through his pockets.

‘Oh, sorry. I’ve got to take this.’ He wiggles his phone in the air for a second, keeping the blank screen facing his chest.

‘Duty calls!’ she says, winking as she pats his shoulder.

The tense smile he attempts comes out a little bit more like a grimace, but she doesn’t seem to notice. He breathes a sigh of relief as he ducks into the kitchen; he’ll just have to wait for a minute or two, then speak to Miles. Anyone would think he’d just had a phone call from work and was relaying information to his sergeant. No questions asked, no answers required. It’s a good thing, too, seeing as Chandler doesn’t know if he has any.

He finds Miles chatting to another of Judy’s innumerous relatives next to the back door. It says enough about their working relationship that the older detective takes one look at Chandler’s face and extricates himself. 

‘What’s going on?’

‘I’m just going to pay a visit to your pond,’ Chandler says, nodding past Miles’ shoulder to the darkness held apart by windows.

‘Is there any particular reason you’ve taken such a sudden fancy to my carp?’

‘It’s—it’s all a bit—well, a bit much,’ he mutters, and he knows Miles understands it’s not just Judy’s sister.

Even so, her ill-timed wave in their direction earns slightly crooked expressions from the both of them.

‘Yeah, I know what you mean,’ Miles says when Riley takes pity on them both and distracts her. ‘God, I wish I could go out there and have a sit down myself.’

(Chandler really hopes that he doesn’t.)

Miles stares at him through the pause. ‘Well, what are you still doing here, then?’

After mumbling something embarrassingly similar to thanks, Chandler flees. He doesn’t really want to think of it as fleeing, but that’s what it is, in the end, isn’t it? In any case, he’s thankful for the cool October air and the gentle splashes of Miles’ fish retreating as he approaches. It’s almost too cold to be outside without a coat, but Chandler’s always been a warm creature and his sweater will do. The warm glow falling from the open windows doesn’t quite reach the grass where Chandler pauses, and as he shoves his hands into his pockets the rumble of laughter drifts out. He feels no temptation to join in, not when the moon’s reflection flashes in the ripples of water. Not when there’s an owl hooting, somewhere, and he can finally string two coherent thoughts together. He doesn’t particularly _like_ the thoughts, nor are they comfortable, but it’s reassuring that he’s having them at all. 

The fact that Kent keeps popping into his mind is entirely incidental. That’s what he’s trying to tell himself, because somewhere in the back of his skull he knows that it’s the furthest thing from incidental that could possibly exist. He’s seen better excuses for coincidence from even the most haphazard of criminals. Plus, even Chandler knows that if it’s not worked after a week of trying then it’s not going to. He would have expected this sort of thing to come on slowly, gradually, _incrementally_ ; it hasn’t. It’s a sudden, all-encompassing idea that grows the less he feeds it. 

There are a hundred reasons that should stop him. Kent’s male—but that doesn’t seem to have deterred Chandler’s train of thought so far. Kent’s a subordinate officer—but it wouldn’t be the first time that’s happened in the force. Kent’s his colleague, they work together and it could compromise the integrity of the team—but it’s not like Chandler wouldn’t be willing to put himself between any one of his workmates and a bullet. Kent’s at least seven years younger than him—but they’re both adults, they can make their own decisions. Kent can’t possibly understand how much of a mess Chandler feels he is—but he might understand enough. 

A wind picks up as Chandler scrapes a hand across his face, and if he was in a better state of mind he might have minded that it ruffled the front of his hair. He doesn’t, though, and glances back at the house from the gap between his fingers. The gentle flop of fish investigating his presence is interrupted by the resounding pop of a cork; Chandler tries to ignore the muffled crescendo of familiar voices. He doesn’t succeed, and there’s a fresh surge of guilt that comes with Miles’ rusty laughter. Is he really trying to find an excuse to try it on with their youngest team member? Is he _really—_

There’s a crunching of gravel and Chandler looks towards the sound. He can’t quite understand the feeling of relief he gets when he recognizes Kent’s silhouette. It shouldn’t be there, for both the obvious reasons and the fact that Kent confuses him—a bit. (A lot.) 

He’s all youth, yet none of it reaches his eyes. The sharp line of his jaw is set against the warm light behind him, shoulders hunched against the wind that picks up as he approaches. What was it about him, age and youth in one glance? Chandler wonders if he’s like that, too many lost lifetimes contracted into thirty-three years. Kent has even less time to fill, and fill it he’s done. Hardened by the cold, by the job, by time. It got them all in the end, even him. Even Kent, all large-eyed and smiling when he was pleased. All tears in car parks. All wringing hands and bitten lips. All silver scars and brave faces. 

‘I’ve been told to retrieve you in the name of cake, sir.’

Kent stops walking in the middle of the sentence, angling his body to face the pond as he stands at the older man’s shoulder.

Chandler sniffs. ‘Not an entirely compelling argument.’

‘Skip insists.’

‘Well, in that case.’

Kent exhales through his nose in a half-laugh, and Chandler smiles at the side of his head. Silence stretches the time between them, and Chandler’s starting to wonder why Miles wasn’t storming out to fetch them himself when Kent finally speaks again.

‘Are you all right, sir?’

Kent’s question hovers in the air, unsolicited, and neither of them move their heads to look at it.

‘Why do you always ask?’ Chandler can’t reroute the frown that mars his brow.

Kent shrugs, his hands still buried in his jacket pockets. ‘I wonder, sir.’

It’s a simple enough answer, but it still puzzles Chandler. He could ask why Kent wonders, but he won’t, because that’s far too close to a direct question for comfort. Was it the mere suggestion that Kent cares that made him interested in the first place? Chandler can’t help but wonder if he’s attracted because Kent is—because there was the suggestion of reciprocation before he even thought about wanting it. But when had he first thought about wanting it? There isn’t a safe answer. 

Kent’s been watching him. Chandler hasn’t noticed, but when he turns and Kent’s eyes are already on him, that’s the only possible conclusion. His first instinct is to look away, to regain some vestige of comfort, but there’s something in the set of Kent’s brow that anchors him. Something gentle that’s absent elsewhere. And maybe that’s why he doesn’t flinch away from the flicker of Kent’s eyes as they dart across his mouth, because as much of a warning as that is it doesn’t worry him like Judy’s sister’s hand had. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t move when Kent does, when Kent leans upwards with his hands in his pockets and brushes an inexplicable kiss to the corner of Chandler’s mouth.

When he steps back, his eyes rake across Chandler’s face, and the older man can’t quite make his stunned face move. Then Kent’s mouth tightens, hard and disappointed, before he turns and begins to walk away.

‘Wait—’ The word is out of Chandler’s mouth before he even realises that it’s been laying heavy on his tongue. 

Kent turns around, halted by whatever it was that broke in Chandler’s voice. ‘What?’ 

Maybe it’s the lack of a questioning ‘ _sir,_ ’ maybe it’s the fact that it’s dark or maybe it’s the fact that Kent’s probably just smashed through his carefully constructed floodgates but Chandler reaches out and Kent’s skin warms his hands and he kisses him. He just does it, and it’s probably the first thing he’s _just done_ in years, so as Kent’s shocked mouth becomes pliable under his own it’s all he can do to realise he’s not being pushed away, and that he doesn’t particularly want to be. It’s not just the small sound he makes in the back of his throat when Chandler takes one of Kent’s lips between his own, either; it’s the curl of Kent’s fingers into the cashmere of his jumper, the handful of Kent’s jacket collar Chandler had caught when he grasped the side of his face, the slide of his fingers through the ends of Kent’s hair, the tickle of shallow breaths against his cheek— 

Chandler pulls away with a sucked-in breath, and although Kent follows him he can’t catch up. His hands jerk away, recoiling to a reasonable difference quicker than Kent can relinquish his grip. There’s a flicker of hurt on the constable’s face when Chandler steps back, and they look at each other a moment longer than necessary.

His first instinct is to apologize, but he’s not sure if he’s sorry yet. He settles for a sentence instead.

‘I—I don’t know why I did that.’

‘Do you need to?’

Yes. The immediate answer is yes, but as he watches Kent’s dark eyes watching him, Chandler doesn’t feel as strongly as he might have done before.

‘Come on,’ Kent says, his voice harder than Chandler’s used to. ‘They’ll be waiting.’

And then he’s gone. Not _gone_ gone, because he’s still there and Chandler watches his back as he walks away, but he’s missed his chance, hasn’t he? Kent was there with him for a moment and then he pushed him out, even as he realised he didn’t really want to. There’s something rising in his throat as Chandler jogs to catch up, hand half outstretched to clasp Kent’s shoulder, but it dies away and he slows to a walk as they reach the gravel of Miles’ drive.

His hand falls to his side, and he’s never been so disappointed in himself in his life.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 5 December 2013
> 
> Re: Miles' daughter's name. I'm not sure whether or not her name's been defined in canon, so I've taken the liberty of assigning her a name myself. I apologise if I've missed any mention of her name; she's Millie for the sake of this verse. ;)


	2. Chapter 2

Kent had gone in, sung happy birthday, picked at a ghoulishly sweet piece of cake and knocked back one too many vodka tonics.

He isn’t drunk when he clambers into bed, per se, but it’s enough to give him a throbbing headache when the shrieks of his phone drag him away from his already tenuous sleep. He gropes through the thin darkness, chasing the blue cast of light that pricks at his eyes. He’s never got used to that; he had found it rather easy to get used to the yellow glow of the streetlamp outside his window that obliterates every variety of curtain, but electronic pallor?

His fingers know the way to answer a call, and he holds the phone loosely to his ear with eyes closed. ‘Yup?’ 

He doesn’t bother with niceties anymore. Doesn’t need to, really, since at this time of night it would either be one of his flatmates (‘Kent, I’ve just realised. We’re out of milk. Where do you get milk at three in the morning?’) or someone from the station (‘Kent, there’s a body.’) It’s slightly terrifying that he doesn’t respond that differently to either of them: noncommittal grunts and two-word sentences followed by a healthy dose of cursing them all once he’s ended the call. There’s even more cursing if Fred or Oliver manage to pocket call him, which happens more often than it should. At least Sarala understands how to operate a phone properly. 

‘Alright, Kent?’ It’s Miles, sounding more tired than shattered. ‘You up?’

‘Just about.’ He yawns around the words.

‘Well, you’d better get up quickly, then. We’ve got a body in Vicky Park.’

Kent can’t halt the heavy exhalation that escapes his lungs. ‘Oh, brilliant.’

‘Just get down ‘ere. Uniform will meet you at Crown Gate,’  Miles pauses as Kent makes a pillow-muffled sound even he can’t identify. ‘Buck up, kid.' 

Kent’s tempted to say, ‘Fuck off, skip,’ because that’s the sort of mood he’s in, but he doesn’t. He ends the call and chucks the mobile over his shoulder instead, and can’t even be bothered to be glad it lands on the duvet instead of the floor.

He’s not going to think about it. He’s not. He’s really, really not. 

Except he knows what Chandler tastes like, now, and he can’t ignore _that_.

The memory comes back, dulled at the edges by distilled spirits and disbelief, and Kent shakes it off with the duvet. Why the fuck had he done it? He’s really not going there, not when he has to get up and go out and stand over a corpse with the very same man he’d kissed eight hours before. Not when it didn’t end particularly well. Not when they’re both going to have to pretend it never happened.

Kent gulps down two Nurofen and savours the taste of the sickly coating on his tongue. There’s a moment where he considers borrowing some of Oliver’s so-called ‘emergency get-together’ gin and leaving a conciliatory fiver, but then he remembers that he’s not Chandler. He can’t swig down a couple of shots and work. He’d just get silly, and he’s already been silly enough to last him at least six months. He’s still not decided what he’s going to do with himself by the time he’s tiptoed around the bathroom, pulled on his last clean suit and polished off Sarala’s last custard tart.

(She won’t be happy about it, but Kent reckons that’s the least of his problems.)

But even through the shortcrust pastry and the ibuprofen and whatever’s left of last night’s vodka, Kent thinks about it. He thinks about not thinking about it, then he ends up thinking about it because what else is he supposed to do? Chandler had kissed him. Chandler had _kissed_ him. _Chandler_ had kissed him. Chandler had kissed _him_. How the fuck had that happened? Why—well, it didn’t matter, did it? It had all gone to shit in the end. Bloody typical, really, except the last time he’d buggered it up this badly was during the Bogeyman case.

They’d had that slinging match at the time, and Kent had taken the two weeks’ leave he’d been owed. Skip had slapped him on the shoulder when he had finally come back, saying he’d better go and see the boss because, quote, ‘ _his nibs never quite got used to the empty desk._ ’ So he’d gone in and Chandler apologised and so did he and that was the end of what was probably the most awkward conversation in his life. It took another few weeks for them both to coax out smiles out of each other, but they’d managed. Miles and Riley might have done a little pushing, and Mansell may have taken the piss, but they aren’t awkward anymore. Or, at least, they weren’t. They might be, after what’s happened. 

Kent fancies a cigarette, but he’s not fancied a cigarette since he was seventeen and stupid so he’s not about to buy a pack now.

He still tries to avoid as many shops as possible on the way, though.

Just in case.

*

It looks like the cold is already penetrating through the folds of Riley’s scarf when Kent arrives. She’s stood adjusting the fabric around her chin as he comes to a stop at the curb, and curses into the wind as her hair whips into her eyes.

‘It’s always us, isn’t it?’ she says, sputtering around the blonde strands as she fights to reattach them to her bun. ‘Everyone else seems to be able to wait until morning. We have to trudge through damp parks before dawn.’

Kent scoffs as he swings his leg over the moped to dismount. ‘Murphy’s law.’

‘You’re not kidding,’ Riley says, unzipping her jacket pockets and shoving her hands inside. ‘God, it probably would have been better if I’d just not gone to bed at all.’

Kent reckons it probably would have been better if he’d learnt to leave an unattended bottle of vodka alone, but he understands the sentiment.

‘I’ll let them know you’ve arrived, yeah?’

He nods as he balances his helmet on the seat, and by the time his keys are out of the machinery and in his hand she’s in the distance, separated from the road by cast iron gates and uniforms strapping up the area with crime scene tape. Kent takes a deep breath as he weighs the sculpted metal in his closed fist; that’s the first step over with, then. He’s broken the situation’s ice. He can still talk to Riley without giving the game away. What game, though? There’s no game. He’s not going to think about it.

Kent’s shadow lengthens as a familiar vehicle comes to a gentle stop behind him. He doesn’t need to see it in its entirety to know it’s Chandler’s Range Rover; he’d kept his eyes peeled trying to avoid it on his own approach. He can’t very well walk off now—at least, not at the breakneck speed his feet are telling him to break into—so he settles for hoping that for some unknown reason Chandler picked Miles up on the way. 

(That would prevent any awkward situations, wouldn’t it?)

There’s no such luck, and as Chandler steps out the door Kent can’t quite figure out how to make himself scarce. He’s both well aware that he’s just standing there, sliding his key ring from one finger to another, and entirely confounded about how they’re supposed to handle this situation. Then again, Chandler’s the boss, so he could always just transfer him and be done with it—

‘Good morning, Kent.’

He sounds normal enough, so Kent goes with good old reliable cynicism.

‘I’ll believe that when I see it.’

Chandler gets an expression on his face then that looks as if he might have chuckled if they weren’t standing outside a crime scene. ‘It’s not that early.' 

‘Speak for yourself, sir.’ Kent curls a fist in his coat pocket; the warm metal bites into his palm. Distraction—that’s what he needs, distraction. (A body would probably do the trick, actually.)

He’s consciously making sure he doesn’t squeak the words out, so for a moment he can’t possibly think what’s caught Chandler’s attention over his shoulder. 

‘Do you—’ Chandler begins, accompanied by atrophied thrust of the hand that is still clasped around his car keys. ‘Do you want to leave your helmet in my car? Save you carrying it around.’

Kent’s mouth may drop open just a little bit, but it’s more out of confusion than anything else. Sarala teases him about the habit enough. In any case, he can see why Chandler’s offering—and he can’t. It’s not necessary. He usually just leaves it with the bike at crime scenes—the place is crawling with _police_ , after all—but it would save him from checking for spiders and bird shit afterwards. Which is a plus.

(The mere fact that Chandler offered at all intrigues him, too. But he’s not supposed to be thinking about that, is he?)

He looks over his shoulder at the item in question for a moment, then reaches out and grasps it. ‘Yeah, go on then.’

Chandler takes it from him and looks entirely out of his depth, like if he’d just been handed a ukulele. Still, he manages, holding it slightly away from himself as he opens the passenger door. Kent would call it endearing if they hadn’t charged past that point less than eight hours ago.

‘Right,’ Chandler says as the door falls shut. ‘Shall we get on?’

Kent doesn’t answer, just steps out of the way instead and lets Chandler take the lead. That’s what he’s paid to do, after all. _Shall we get on_? It seems as if they will. Kent’s not sure if he likes it, though, when they walk through the gates and duck under the bright tape. But what else does he want? Well, there’s _that_ , obviously but it won’t happen. Can’t happen. His luck’s so consistently shit that he’d never really thought that it could, even when he’d made that gut decision to instigate.

(Fucking vodka.)

They’re both adults. They can kiss and not talk about it. That’s perfectly within their capabilities as full grown human beings. Hell, Kent can remember doing the same thing with one of Oliver’s mates during his first year on the force. They’ve never said a word about it to each other, and they can still have a laugh. Ergo, Kent concludes, he and Chandler can do the same thing. Probably. Maybe. (Maybe not.) 

Kent makes the mistake of yawning, loudly, as he falls into step behind Chandler. He may have even hiccuped halfway through, though that was probably just the shock of Chandler turning his head so quickly.

‘Do you need anything? I could get you a coffee, some tea—’

(Is it really that bad? Kent had reckoned he looked a bit peaky in the mirror, though to be honest he’d just put that down to the shit lighting. Maybe he does look a bit of a mess. It wouldn’t be the first time they’ve worked a crime scene a bit sozzled. It would be the first time Chandler has commented on his well-being after a run-in with a bottle of cheap vodka.) 

‘No, no—you’re all right, sir,’ Kent says, although the yawn that slips out doesn’t support his assertions.

Chandler might just smile at him then, although in the murky London morning Kent can’t really be sure. ‘Are you telling me, or asking me?’

Kent wants to say _Whatever you need me to be saying_ , but only a pinched smile comes out.

(He’s really not going to go there.)

Miles is waiting for them near one of the pedestrian alcoves—old bits of London Bridge, Kent had taken a liking to them as soon as he arrived in the East End—and he shoves paper crime scene suits in their direction. He’s already rustling around in his, and Kent could do without the smirk he gets when the wind whips up one of the arms and it ends up smacking him around the face.

Chandler, of course, manages without such ungracefulness. ‘What have we got?’

Miles gestures to the makeshift tent peeking out from the other side of the stone alcove. ‘Stabbing. Young girl.’

‘Suspicious?’

‘Aren’t they all?’ Miles asks with a degree of exasperation, though it dies away when Chandler shoots him a look. ‘Well, she definitely didn’t knife herself, _sir_.’

Chandler ducks his head in that way he does when he thinks Miles is being facetious (Kent’s inclined to agree with him), and as he zips the top of the suit he turns to march into the cordoned-off area, pulling on a pair of latex gloves on the way. Miles and Kent follow, walking more in steps than in Chandler’s stride, and the constable begins his inevitable fight with the paper shoe covers.

‘Do they ever?’ he asks in a murmur.

‘Yeah, in baths.’ Miles doesn’t turn around to look at him until they reach the makeshift door. ‘In you get.’

Kent never worked any of those suicides. Somehow the cases never made it to his team. He didn’t know if that could be considered lucky or not. Even so, the image of porcelain stained red and pink bath water and razor blades jumps to his mind and he can’t quite get it to go away quick enough. He might be a policeman but he doesn’t like it; he doesn’t like what he has to look at. And they’re just getting closer to having to do it one more time, to poke around with someone’s body to find out who put it there.

Dr Llywellyn heaves herself to her feet and pulls the mask away from her mouth as they file inside. Kent doesn’t know if he’s ever seen her greet them with anything other than a sad, remorseful smile. 

‘Morning.’

They echo the sentiment; there’s no need to preface it with adjectives that don’t quite fit. Just the idea of a new dawn feels wrong when there’s a body at their feet, a person that will never see it and whose consciousness disappeared into the black of night. Kent should be desensitized by now, really, he knows, but then again Sarala should be as well and she’s come home from the hospital in tears too many times to count. There’s no escaping humanity. 

He chances a sideways glance at Chandler, but he’s just got on with it, peering at the form at their feet. She’s not sprawled, not spread-eagled, not splayed. She’s just crumpled, collapsed under her own weight, and the grey marl of her jumper is blackened with blood. Kent’s stomach lurches, as it always does, when he meets her wide-open eyes and finds nothing there. 

‘You’ve got a young female—between twenty-five and thirty, around five foot six—with multiple stab wounds to the abdomen,’ begins Llywellyn, her gloved hand hovering over the wound site. ‘Three entrance wounds, but only two of them deep. The other’s much shallower, almost superficial.’

‘Cause of death?’ Chandler asks, twisting his head to follow the movement of the pathologist’s pointing finger.

‘You’ll have to wait until I’ve done a complete post-mortem to get an official answer, but the wounds are serious. Internal bleeding as a result of the trauma is probable. The aorta’s been severed, and this entry wound here—’ She points to a particularly dark patch of fabric on the victim’s left side. ‘—is near enough to the spleen that it’s likely the attacker caught the organ, especially since it looks like it’s not a straight in-and-out strike.’

Chandler rustles beside Kent. ‘There’s no obvious weapon?’

Llywellyn shakes her head. ‘Not on or near the victim, no. She would have bled out even more quickly because the weapon wasn’t left in situ.’

‘Any ideas about what we’re looking for?’ asks Miles. 

‘Something with a serrated edge.’

Miles looks up from where he’s crouched, and raises an eyebrow. ‘Well, that’s more than we’re used to getting from you, Caroline.’ 

She turns to fix him with the shadow of a stern look. ‘There’s some rather definitive tearing around the wound sites that suggest a serrated edge. Not an especially long one, though. I can’t say for certain yet, but I don’t think you’re looking for anything like a bread knife. Or any kitchen knife, for that matter.’ 

He frowns. ‘But definitely a knife?’

‘You know I can’t be definite at this stage. There’s always the possibility of something more exotic than a bog-standard blade, but I can’t say either way until I’ve been back to the lab. There’s only so much I can do at a crime scene.’

‘Right, then. What about who we’re looking for?’

‘I’m not a clairvoyant, Ray, even though it does sometimes seem that way.’ Llywellyn says with a brief smile that momentarily lightens the mood. ‘Though the wounds are quite… controlled? Her attacker wasn’t frantic. But they didn’t get it right the first time, either—and there is that shallow cut—so I wouldn’t think he or she was a professional.’

‘Prepared for the possibility, though?’ Kent suggests. ‘Not planning on it, but aware the situation might call for violence?’

She nods. ‘I’d say that was a reasonable conclusion. If there was only one strike then it would have been extremely lucky for someone who didn’t know exactly what they were doing to kill with a single hit. These injuries would suggest they had the general idea but no so-called training.’

Chandler clears his throat. ‘How long has she been…’ He trails off, even then.

Llywellyn motions to one of her own team and pulls off one latex glove. ‘I’d put time of death anywhere between six and eight hours ago.’

‘Between nine and eleven last night, then.’ Kent surprises himself with the mental math, and scolds himself for the distracting mental pictures of what he and Chandler were doing at the time.

‘Mmhm.’ The pathologist turns away from the group of detectives to peer into the plastic bag she’s been handed. She holds it out to Miles once she’s identified the contents. ‘Her personal effects. She had her phone and a bit of cash in a jeans pocket, and keys in a jacket pocket.’

Miles thumbs at the cash through the plastic, and turns to Chandler. ‘Not a mugging, then?’

‘It seems unlikely.’

The sergeant returns his attention to Llywellyn. ‘No identification?’

She shakes her head. ‘There’s the phone, but…’

‘It’s not conclusive.’

‘No.’

Miles holds the bag under the closest light source, stretching the clear material tight over the contents. ‘Nothing else?’ 

‘Nothing.’

‘Right, then. Ta,’ he says to Llywellyn, who smiles, before turning to Chandler. ‘I’ll just go and have a word with the bloke who found her.’

Chandler’s mouth narrows as he hods, and he seems deep in thought as Miles marches away from them. Kent remains silent, and begins to feel the cold (even through the thick walls of the forensic tent); he places his hands in his coat for safekeeping. 

Dr Llywellyn catches Chandler’s eye. ‘May I?’

‘What?’ Chandler’s still standing there, controlling his breathing with a hand over his mouth. ‘Oh. Yes, of course.’

And when SOCO swarms, with their body bags and preparations, he ducks out of the zipped flap door and becomes the static shadow of a man through fabric. Kent doesn’t quite know what to do, and stands watching for what’s probably too long until Llywellyn appears at his side. She inclines her head in Chandler’s direction when Kent notices her proximity. 

‘He’s a bit ansty,’ she says, folding her arms across her chest.

Kent’s heart lodges itself in his throat; at least, he hopes that’s what it is, because otherwise he’s just developed some rather serious breathing difficulties. He doesn’t want to think that he might know _why_ the boss would be antsy. He could just put it down to the blood. The messiness of it all. The crime scenes, how _grubby_ they make Chandler feel.

‘Yeah,’ he says, pursing his lips as he follows her line of sight.

They stand there, side by side, for a moment before Llywellyn turns back to their victim and Kent reckons he can’t just hang around all day. He follows his boss’s footsteps, and as he manages to extricate himself from the tent he notices that Chandler’s still there. Just standing—possibly thinking, _probably_ thinking—as he folds the line of the crime scene suit as neatly as he can without a decent flat surface at his disposal. Another glance around and Kent can see Riley and Skip with a distressed-looking man, and Mansell speaking to one or two of the uniformed officers not with their department. 

There probably won’t be any harm in hanging about a bit. Kent might not be thinking about what happened, but he still means what he said. _I wonder_ , _sir_. He wonders even when he’s not supposed to. He wonders because he’s not supposed to, because who is? Miles, Kent supposes, but he’s got his own family to worry about. Plus, Kent suspects that Skip doesn’t have quite the same sort of investment he has. It’s hard to imagine that he would. Then again it’s hard to imagine a successful relationship between a constable and his inspector, too, so that’s not saying much. 

In any case, Kent decides not to do the thing that any self-respecting detective constable would do and take initiative in favour of sidling up to Chandler and standing just near enough to elicit conversation—if there’s any there to elicit at all.

(Kent’s never quite sure about that with the boss. Sometimes there is, sometimes there isn’t.)

The lamp Chandler’s standing next to casts a yellow light onto his already yellowing bruises, and Kent chastises himself for still wanting to reach out and touch them against the pads of his fingers. As if that would help. 

‘ _Quem di diligunt adulescens moritur._ ’

To Kent, it sounds like Chandler’s just spitting out assorted consonants into the night. But he’s the only one there to hear them, so they must be for him. 

‘Excuse me, sir?’

‘Those whom the gods love die young.’ 

‘Course?’ Kent ventures, although he’s rather sure that the police don’t offer courses in conversational Latin.

‘No, just something I was interested in.’

‘Like Keats?’

Kent doesn’t really understand why he brings it up; he doesn’t have to, and it would probably have been better if he hadn’t. They’re standing in the middle of a crime scene, and they’re trying to talk about poetry. Except it’s what Miles had done for him when he’d first joined the team, and it’d helped to talk about something other than the zipping of the body bag and the clicking of forensic cameras. Chandler wasn’t new blood and neither was he but they all still did it. Murder doesn’t change, so why should they? It’s never easy, to stand over someone’s corpse. 

‘You recognised that?’ 

‘I’m carting around an English A-level, sir,’ he says, allowing a small smile to slip through to his mouth.

‘Really?’

Chandler seems honestly interested. It’s disconcerting, the openness of his face.

Kent turns away and faces the cracks of the pavement. ‘Yeah. Literature, politics, biology. Then straight into the force.’

‘Biology was a bit out of place, wasn’t it?’

A shrug accompanies Kent’s reply. ‘Probably why I ended up with a D in that one.’

Ironic, really. He couldn’t have remembered the names of all the bones in the hand for the life of him at eighteen, and a year later he’d seen all of them broken. He knows more about the abdominal cavity and its contents from disembowelments than diagrams. He knows about poisonings, about stabbings, about strangulations, about throttlings, about shootings, about overdoses, and yet he never quite got to grips with light-independent reactions.

Chandler nudges the small gravel of the footpath with the sole of his shoe as they stand in silence, and Kent speaks before his mind can tell him it’d be best not to.

‘ _They dipp’d their swords in the water, and did tease their horses homeward, with convulsed spur, each richer by his being a murderer._ ’ 

Chandler looks at him and smiles slowly in a manner that doesn’t feel inappropriate for a crime scene. It’s a skill he doesn’t know he has.

‘Don’t try and get anything else out of me, sir. That’s the one thing I remember,’ Kent warns, though he looks away when Chandler holds his gaze. One shoulder jumps to his ear in the afterthought of a shrug. ‘Seemed apt, at the time.’

Except that’s a bit of a fib, really, because there’s always that bit at the end of _Jane Eyre_ that gives Kent reason to pause. _Is it better to drive a fellow-creature to despair than to trangress a mere human law, no man being injured by the breach?_ It had struck a chord with him then, in that overwarm classroom, and he’d hoped it’d struck a chord with the boy sat two desks to his right. (It hadn’t.) And now, when it pops back into his head again and he’s stood near enough to Chandler to kid himself that he can feel his body heat through the morning chill, the words begin to wrap themselves around workspace relationship policies instead of the general idea of his sexuality. Except he’s already buggered that up, hasn’t he? He’d almost forgotten, faced with that smile.

‘Wait a minute—’ Chandler says, half under his breath and half exclaimed, as he turns away from Kent in favour of staring at the cold, dark water of the fishing pond in the distance. He turns back to Kent and then away again in what must have been less than a second, because Kent can hardly do more than narrow his eyes that little bit more before Chandler’s motioning to a passing uniform. ‘Matthews! Contact someone at the station, we need to have this lake searched.’ 

The officer nods before hurrying towards the street, and as Chandler shoves the neatly folded square onto the nearby bench Riley strides up to them with both Mansell and Miles in tow. 

‘Boss?’

‘Yes?’

‘The jogger—Jamie Poole—the one who found the body. He reckons he might know who she is.’

‘Really?’ 

She sighs heavily into the lightening air. ‘No, not really, but it’s all we can go on at the moment.’ 

‘Go on, then.’ Chandler says as he rubs a hand over his eyes.

‘He jogs the same path through the park most weekday mornings, sometimes Saturdays if he’s missed a day. You know what it’s like, you start seeing familiar faces and you might chat sometimes—sort of like the school run, really. Anyway, he says they’ve spoken a couple of times. Not really proper conversations, _good morning_ s and _how are you_ s and that sort of thing so he doesn’t know a thing about her. But he did hear one of her friends call her Lou once.’

Miles huffs and shoves his hands into his jacket pockets. ‘That could just be a nickname. What if her name’s Lucy? Or Louise? Louisa? Louella? It _could_ just be Lou…’

They all look at him as if he’s just sprouted a second head.

‘What? We’ve still got enough baby name books in the house to have a bloody bonfire.’

Mansell snorts from behind his paper cup of coffee. ‘Haven’t you discovered the internet yet?’

‘Judy’s old-fashioned.’

‘Right then,’ Chandler says, interrupting the diversion with a slightly louder tone. ‘We’ve got a bit of a name—’

Mansell finishes the thought for him. ‘—And that’s about it.’

‘Right.’ Chandler looks to the ground at his feet, a small furrow appearing between his brows as he taps a rhythm onto the side of his leg. Kent finds it difficult to ignore the fact he knows what that would feel like against his skin until Chandler’s light eyes fix on him. ‘Kent, go back to the station and try to formally identify the victim. Start with the phone and missing persons.’

‘Yes, sir.’ 

‘Mansell, you and Riley oversee the search of the fishing pond. It’s one of the more likely places to dump the murder weapon, but there’s no current so we shouldn’t be in too much trouble as far as movement goes. The longer its in there the worse it is for forensics, though, so if it’s there to be found let’s find it quickly. They like to keep us waiting even with perfectly preserved evidence.’

Kent’s already stepped away from the rest of them as the two other constables nod to climb out of what was left of his crime scene suit. He’s faced with only the bloody infuriating shoe covers when he realises that he needs his helmet. Which is in Chandler’s car. Chandler’s locked car. Chandler’s locked car that he left parked on the other side of the park. _Shit_.

He takes a deep breath and a step towards where Chandler’s already speaking quietly to Miles. ‘Sir?’

The blond man looks up. ‘Yes?’

‘Helmet.’ Kent motions towards his head. 

Chandler looks at him blankly for a moment before realisation appears in his eyes. ‘Oh! Yes, of course. Miles, I’ll just—’

Miles shoos him away with a dismissive wave, and Chandler looks between them with wide eyes before swooping away down the path, leaving Kent jogging to catch up. He never really does manage to bring himself level with Chandler, though, and they only exchange words when they reach the Range Rover and the inspector fishes his keys out of an inside coat pocket. He opens and closes the passenger door in one fluid motion. 

‘There you go,’ he says, holding the headgear in front of himself with a slightly awkward grip.

Kent takes it from him with both hands, palms laid flat against the plastic shell. ‘Thanks.’

The taller man gives him a short smile, which Kent doesn’t get a chance to return. Chandler turns on his heel, and with the flick of his wrist the Ranger Rover beeps shut. Kent watches him go as the flash of the headlights dies away, and he reckons that was the only time Chandler could have brought it up. The only time he could have said anything, when they were away from the rest of the team and a quick comment would have been carried away by the traffic. Not mentioning it is almost an order to ignore it—so ignore it he will.

He’s not disappointed. No. No, definitely not.

Except he desperately is. 

*

It’s light by the time Kent settles into his chair in the incident room, and it’s much more comfortable to stare into the beige of his tea than it is to do anything else. He’d much rather have coffee at this ungodly hour of the morning, but he’s familiar enough with the morning after routine to know that it’d just make the slight pounding in his head worse. That plus a morning of clicking through the computer’s missing persons database would just be a recipe for eyestrain-related disaster, and he’s had quite enough disasters for one day already, thank you very much.

Other officers, both uniform and plain-clothes, file in as Kent decides by what criteria he’s going to use. None of it’s really specific enough to be useful; there’s still considerably more than a handful of matches. More like a boatload, in fact. He indulges in a sigh that uses all the air in his lungs as he narrows down the findings to reports from the Greater London area. He has to start somewhere, after all.

Riley arrives when he’s approximately an eighth of the way through and running low on tea. Kent turns to offer her a brief nod of greeting—anything else will pull him out of whatever efficient trance he’s been lulled into, and popular science says it’ll take him seven minutes to get it back and he doesn’t have _seven bloody minutes_ —but she’s brandishing an evidence bag. At least that could be a bit interesting. And the phone should give them a name, at least, with a bit of tinkering. Which forensics would probably insist on doing themselves. _Shit_. 

‘Here you go,’ she says, dropping the bag on top of his filing as she pulls off her coat.

Kent puts down his mug. ‘Is this it?’

‘Yes. Dr Llywellyn’s cleared it for us for a while, but it’ll need to go to the tech boys before long.’

‘Ah, bureaucracy,’ Kent mutters as he peers at the phone’s screen through the plastic. The screen comes alive once he presses a button; thankfully there’s a decent amount of battery left.

‘It’s for the best,’ Riley says, though she’s smiling as she unwinds her scarf and sits at her desk. ‘Still a bloody pain in the arse, though.’

He grins in agreement, then turns back to the computer screen. If he can get through checking half of the London ones, he’ll take a break to examine the phone. At least then he can say he made a concerted effort to identify the victim using means other than handling potentially essential evidence. Satisfied with his plan, and the fact that his head isn’t feeling quite as vice-like anymore, Kent attempts to drain the last of his tea only to find it’s gone cold. He grimaces against the clammy liquid and shoves the ceramic across the surface of his desk.

Whether it’s the scraping sound that makes everyone in the immediate area freeze or the ringtone, Kent can’t tell. He’s still recoiling from the taste in his mouth when he realises a phone’s going at all, and an embarrassingly long moment stretches between that realisation and the one that tells him that it’s _her_ phone. He wastes no time after that as he jumps to his feet and pulls a pair of gloves out of a drawer. His fingers fumble a bit as he fiddles with the closure of the bag, but the mobile’s still ringing when he brandishes it in front of him, presses the answer call button, and sets it to speakerphone.

Kent meets Riley’s expectant gaze as he speaks. ‘Hello?’ 

‘Oh, sorry—’ It’s a female voice. ‘Sorry, but, um, is Lou there?’

His heart sinks as he recognizes her surprise. ‘I’m afraid, miss, that this is DC Kent with Whitechapel police.’

There’s a sudden intake of breath, and the words come out on exhale. ‘Oh, my God. Is she—?’

‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask for your full name, miss?’

‘Um… uh, Roselyn. Roselyn Lyons.’

Kent grabs blindly with his free hand for the pen that he knows is on his desk, and pulls the cap off with his teeth. He scribbles down the name as best he can without holding the paper still.

‘And your relation to Lou…?’ He lets the question trail off; they’re getting too close to the terrible explanation for comfort.

‘I’m her flatmate,’ Roselyn replies, her words hovering at the very edge of controlled. ‘Oh, God, what’s happened?’

‘We…’ Kent tries to find the right words. ‘…believe that your flatmate was found in Victoria Park earlier this morning.’

‘And she’s—?’

Kent swallows heavily. ‘It would be a great help to our investigation if you could come down to Whitechapel police station as soon as possible.’ 

‘Investigation? Just—please, just tell me.’

He doesn’t want to say it over the phone, but: ‘We are managing the situation as an unexplained death, Ms Lyons.’ 

The only way Kent can describe the sound she makes is as a whimper.

‘If you could just come to the station and ask for a DI Chandler—’

‘Yes, of—of course. I’m on my way, but—oh, _God_ —someone’s got to tell Jonathan.’

‘Jonathan?’ Kent frowns, and picks up the pen again. 

‘Lou’s boyfriend.’

‘I’m sorry, miss, but if you could just give us his full name—’

Roselyn sniffles around the syllables. ‘Jonathan Torbett. I’ve got his number around here somewhere…’

‘That’s fine, Ms Lyons, we can contact him ourselves.’ Even as he says it, Riley’s taken the paper from his outstretched hand and is already balancing the handset of the office phone in her palm. ‘If you could just give me one or two pieces of information before you go—’ 

The shuffling through papers on the other end of the line stops, and Roselyn takes a deep breath that doesn’t quite calm her. ‘Yes. Yes, of course.’

Kent resolves not to draw this out for much longer; this time he’s ready with both his pen and his questions. ‘What’s Lou’s full name?’ 

‘Louisa Fox.’

He writes and speaks at once. ‘And are there any identifying features that we should know about?’

‘Um—’ She swallows, takes two gulping breaths. ‘Well, she’s got a tiny tattoo of a star on her wrist.’

‘Right.’

‘Oh, but it might be covered. She has to cover it up for work; she used to use some heavy-duty concealer—

‘Which wrist would that be?’

‘Um. Oh, God, I don’t know,’ she says, her voice closer and closer to tears. ‘I don’t _know_.’

‘It’s fine, don’t worry.’ Kent leaves the pen uncapped on his desk and clasps the paper instead. ‘Ms Lyons, is anyone there with you?’

There’s a static on the end of the line that sounds like someone shaking their head. ‘No. God, I dreaded something like this. She’s always back before morning, or rings if she’s going to stay out all night. When she didn’t—’ She breaks off into a truncated sob.

‘I’m sorry, but I have to ask.’ (And he really, really is sorry. He always is.) ‘Would you feel able to formally identify Lou’s body?’

‘I—I don’t know. Oh, _Jonathan—’_

‘We’re contacting him now, Ms Lyons. Are you still able to come in?’

She takes a shuddering breath. ‘Yes, I think so. ’

Kent’s not sure but takes her at her word. She’d know, after all. ‘Ask for either a DI Chandler or a DC Kent at the front desk. One of us will be down to speak to you when you arrive.’ 

The words are half-sighed into the silence Kent leaves for them. ‘All right.’

‘Take care, Ms Lyons,’ he says in return.

‘Thank you.’

She doesn’t say goodbye, and Kent is left at the end of the line as he rereads his handwriting. He’s careful to end the call and reseal the phone back into its evidence bag, peeling the gloves off inside out once he’s finished. The slight powder residue on his skin sticks against paper, and he hates it, but he’s got a job to do. More so now. 

His colleagues had returned to their appointed duties long before the end of the conversation. Judging by Riley’s face, she’s got one of the more difficult attendants on the phone and would undoubtably have to endure a little wrangling to get this Jonathan Torbett’s contact details. As much as Kent wishes there’s another option, he would just have to relay the information to the boss himself, wherever he was. Ironic, really—he’d spent three years thinking up tenuous reasons to go to Chandler and as soon as he doesn’t want it the fates hand him one. Just his sodding luck. 

Mansell comes in with a glowering expression only a coffeepot could cure.

‘Where’s the boss?’ Kent asks.

‘No idea.’ Mansell’s tone is a degree worse than his face. He tilts the acrylic pot in Kent’s direction. ‘Coffee?’

‘Nah, I’ve had a cup of tea already.’ 

‘Suit yourself,’ Mansell grumbles, shrugging as he pours a mug for himself. 

Kent glances over his shoulder. The incident room’s almost full now, each desk occupied and properly utilised, but there’s no sign of either member of the upper chain of command. ‘Have you seen Skip, then?’ 

‘I passed him on my way in.’ Mansell ducks to fish the milk out of the fridge, and huffs out half a bad-tempered laugh. ‘He should be just about at the foot of the stairs by now.’ 

Kent’s tempted to roll his eyes, but he’s a professional. ‘Right.’

‘Why?’ Mansell asks just before he swallows his first gulp.

‘Louisa Fox.’

‘Ah.’ His face gets marginally lighter, but Kent doesn’t know if that was the coffee or the information. ‘Shall I write that down?’

‘It would probably be for the best if you did,’ Kent says, twisting the paper between his fingers. He glances towards the doors before adding, ‘And her flatmate and her boyfriend are on their way in for informal interviews.’ 

Mansell opens the closest drawer and lazily goes in search of an appropriate felt-tip pen. ‘I’ll keep my jam-packed schedule free.’

‘What about the pond?’

‘Later this morning. Half a body washed up in Chiswick last night. We’re low priority.’ 

Kent speaks on the exhale of a resigned sigh. ‘Bloody brilliant.’

‘You can say that again.’ Mansell lets out a derisive snort as he makes his way towards the whiteboards.

Kent’s half tempted to take him up on his offer, because it’s turning out to be one of those sorts of days, but he keeps his mouth shut. It wouldn’t be the first time it had run away with him. The paper in his hand feels heavier and heavier in the moments he stands next to Mansell’s desk, but by the time he forces his feet to carry him to the stop of the stairs, he still can’t quite tell if it’s relief or disappointment that settles in his stomach when he spots Miles.

*

Ed knocks on the office door before Chandler’s managed to get the pot of Tiger Balm to sit right. He knows better than to be annoyed, but it happens anyway.

The archivist pokes his head around the door before his body. ‘Do you have a moment?’ 

‘Of course,’ Chandler says, and he manages to place a smile on his face that doesn’t give Ed any ideas. ‘What have you got for me?’

He links his hands behind his back as he walks further into the room. ‘Not much, I’m afraid. Stabbings are ten a penny in the archive.’

‘I expected as much,’ Chandler all but exhales, scrubbing a hand over his jaw.

‘Stabbings of young _women_ —’ Ed spreads his hands in front of him as he takes a seat and pauses for effect. ‘—are still strikingly common. For all sorts of reasons, too. A large amount of the cases I’ve been looking at are, in fact, torso wounds, but I suppose that’s the easiest bit to hit…’

Chandler cringes and straightens the file that Ed’s stray hand bumped. The stapler gets a bit of a nudge, too, before he thinks better of it.

‘But, if you want to hear about deaths in Victoria Park…’

The detective inspector looks up as Ed trails off. ‘Go on.' 

‘There have been several. Not recently. Victoria Park, or the People’s Park as it is sometimes known, effectively became an anti-aircraft site during the Second World War. There is evidence—some suggestion, in fact—that the park had something to do with the Bethnal Green Tube disaster. A noise or an explosion, something of that sort, was heard from the direction of the park just before the run on the shelter. Possibly a new anti-aircraft rockets. The Ministry of Defence denies this, of course, but then again they always do—’

‘Ed, get to the point.’

Chandler interrupts for the sake of brevity. He definitely doesn’t do it because the longer Ed goes on about conspiracy theories regarding the role of a public green space in the largest single loss of civilian life in World War II, the more likely Chandler’s eyes are to try and follow Kent’s movements around the room on the other side of the windowed walls. That can’t be intruding on his mind _now_.

‘Right,’ Ed says, voice clipped around the edges. ‘Yes, quite right. Where was I? 1943?’

‘Somewhere around there.’

(Chandler can’t quite understand why once you start watching someone it’s so hard to stop completely.)

‘Okay, well. The park has been a bit of an icon for political rallies, for open air speeches, that sort of thing. There are records for injuries and scuffles, a few deaths deemed accidental and a few deemed purposeful dating from the nineteenth century to today. I’ve looked into those, and very few are stabbings. Not like—’ Ed stops himself, finger pressed to his own lips, before he glances back at the whiteboard already littered with notes and photos and the shadow of someone else’s blood on their consciences. ‘Not like hers, anyway.’

‘So there’s nothing?’ 

‘Oh, I don’t know about that, Joe. There might not be a direct precedent, but as far as I can tell I’ve brought you information that might lead to one or two avenues of inquiry. They might not be very _long_ avenues, but they’re options if you want them.’

Chandler nods his assent, but manages to seek out Kent’s face again in the split second pause. Except this time he finds his eyes and can’t hold them; Kent turns away almost before Chandler realises they’re looking at each other, and fiddles with something in a drawer. Ed doesn’t notice as Chandler lowers his gaze to the wood of his desk and frowns.

‘For one, the history of the area as a people’s park. The area was a hotbed of activity for socialist agitation, for nonconformism, for reformism. Any group could pop someone up on the soapbox and watch them go. Now, I doubt any organization or school of thought that used the park in the twentieth century could be responsible for Ms Fox’s death, but what if there was a new vein of thought? One that used the park as a meeting place, perhaps? A nod to the past?’

Sometimes, Ed does come up with some interesting ideas. Chandler wouldn’t have expected it when he’d brought him on, but it happens. This time Chandler stops considering whether or not to have a proper, full-on cleanup of his office to consider how far they could go on an already stretched police budget. 

He settles for, ‘It’s not impossible.’

‘Trust me, Joe,’ Ed says, leaning an elbow on the desk. His watch is five minutes off. ‘If anything in my archive’s to go by, nothing’s impossible.’

Chandler sighs, and tried to reign himself in. ‘We’ll look into it. Anything else?’

‘That’s as far as I’ve got this morning.’

‘Right. Keep going, then. Come up for lunch, too, and we’ll get you up to date with what we’ve got then.’

Chandler catches sight of Kent past Ed’s shoulder and funnily enough, it’s his fingers he remembers, the curl of skin and bone around the crook of his elbow. He can still feel it now. If his body feels like betraying him as much as it usually does, he’ll be flushed in no time, and he’s got a murder investigation to run. He’ll need another shirt. His fingers are already twisting the cufflinks; as soon as he realises, Chandler lies his hands flat on the desk in front of him and takes a deep breath.

‘And don’t forget about meals, Ed. We need everyone on the team in working condition. I’ll send someone down to drag you up, even if you’ve managed to get yourself stuck in a filing cabinet.’

‘Of course,’ Ed replies, returning Chandler’s forced smile with an honest one that makes the inspector feel much more like a liar.

Chandler tries to shoot the constable another look, but apparently his aim’s off. That, or Kent is ignoring him. Chandler realizes that, unfortunately, the latter is more likely. That was why he’d spent the first quarter of an hour at the station loitering around downstairs with a cup of tea, waiting for Ed to arrive so he could do the brief himself instead of manning the boards in the incident room with Kent’s eyes searing into the back of his head. That’s why he’s sat in his walled office, transparent but hidden, there but separate. That’s why he’s straightening that pile of files again, even though Ed’s watching him do it with a quizzical look in his eye.

He’s just about to reach for the Tiger Balm again when Riley almost careens straight into Ed as he widens the open door.

‘We’ve found some more information about the victim’s family, boss,’ she announces, brandishing a torn piece of paper in one hand. Chandler could make out the lettering on the other side; he doesn’t know why he’s disappointed when it’s not Kent’s handwriting.

Chandler gets up anyway, because it’s what he should do and he’s not been doing nearly enough of that in the past twenty-four hours. ‘Yes?’

‘She’s got a brother. The last the flatmate heard he was somewhere in the Wirral, but the boyfriend says he heard he was in Leicestershire. She didn’t talk about him that much. Lyons assumed they just weren’t that close but Torbett thought there might have been some animosity in the family.’ 

‘Of what sort?’ Chandler asks, interest piqued, as he walks out from behind his desk.

Riley shrugs. ‘Doesn’t know. As I said, she didn’t talk about it. They had the impression that she didn’t have much to do with her family anymore. Torbett’s met her parents once or twice—Christmas, someone’s wedding, that sort of thing—but never the brother. He says he can’t remember anyone even mentioning a brother at a ll.’

‘Not unusual, these days,’ Ed says with a resigned sigh, propping his reading glasses on his nose before leaning to read the note. 

‘No, not really.’ Riley tips the paper so Ed can see without craning his neck. ‘Anyway, neither of them knew the bloke’s name, so Kent’s looking.’

She meets Chandler’s eye and he nods, hoping that she can’t read his mind. (She’s got children; she might be able to. She might even have eyes in the back of her head.)

‘What about the parents?’ Ed asks as he removes his glasses and uses them to gesture between the detectives. ‘Surely they know their own son’s name.’

‘Their contact numbers are out of date. Apparently they’re in the middle of relocating to Stavanger, of all places. The boyfriend says they’ve got the numbers written down somewhere, just not put them in their phones yet. Mansell and I were going to look at her flat; he’s checking his.’

‘Right. Give him the chance to do that, but if anything else comes up on him, we’d better check his flat as well.’

As each word rolls out of his mouth, Chandler feels calmer, more in control. He knows what to do with information. He can even work with speculation, at a stretch. It’s the guesswork that makes him nervous. The confusion.

‘Yes, sir.’ Riley folds the paper unevenly and shoves it in her back pocket on her way out. She pauses with one hand on the door. ‘Kent will bring anything straight to you.’

‘Good,’ Chandler says as he ignores the uncomfortable, guilty lurching of his stomach. ‘We’ll find him.’  

They all nod at each other, the sort of policeman’s code for mutual dismissal when there’s little left to be said. Chandler just wants them gone. There’s too much that could be said accidentally for him to relax as Riley takes her leave, and he doesn’t trust himself not to just blurt it out. He’s lost control before. He’d have liked to write it all out, to get the thoughts out of his head and to somewhere where he could rearrange them in peace.

Ed pauses, and they watch her smack the side Mansell’s head on her way to get their coats. Once they’ve both gone, the archivist turns slowly and raises an extended finger. ‘I’ll see what I’ve got on siblings, shall I?’

He doesn’t wait for an answer; Chandler doesn’t try to offer one. He saw the gleam in the other man’s eye. They could probably light the basement with that level of enthusiasm for leafing through files. Perhaps they should bring him in for the audit—

The thought drops clean away from his mind when he realises what he’s looking at. He hadn’t really been paying attention before, with the comfortable, clean silence of his now-empty office and the itch for his hands to leave his pockets and do something, _anything_. Chandler makes a mental note to never not pay attention at the office because there’s Kent again, on the phone, balancing the handset against his shoulder.

A shiver works its way down Chandler’s spine as he remembers how easily his hand fit in the same place.

_Shit_.

Chandler knocks his mobile and keyboard out of place in his haste, and he’s barely sunk into his chair before he’s reaching for the familiar pot and twisting the cap between his thumb and forefinger.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 09 December 2013
> 
> The lines Kent references are from John Keats' poem 'Isabella; or, the Pot of Basil.'
> 
> Thanks so much for the lovely comments/feedback on the first chapter! It means a lot to me. :)


	3. Chapter 3

The first thing Kent realises is that someone’s jabbing a finger into his shoulder, and the second is that his face is being smothered by the arm of the sofa. He can ignore whoever is bothering him—it definitely wouldn’t be the first time he’s chosen whatever scant sleep he can get over his flatmates’ oft-ridiculous demands—but he shifts onto his side to facilitate breathing. He might be able to operate during an investigation on very little rest, but he does need oxygen. And a cup of tea. He could really _, really_ go for a cup of tea.

‘Answer your fucking phone, Kent!’ 

‘Ol, leave him be, he’s _shattered_ —’

‘Are you hearing the sodding tone, Sar? I don’t think I’ve heard anything quite so annoying in my entire—' 

‘He’s in the middle of an inquiry, Oliver! Of course it’s _annoying_!’

(Kent has a feeling he’s not going to be able to charm a cup of tea out of any of them.)

‘Well, if he’s such a brilliant detective, maybe he should—’ Oliver’s voice rises. ‘—answer his sodding phone!’

‘I’m trying, Ol! He’s asleep, I think—’

‘Don’t you dare tickle his feet, Fred.’

(Kent reminds himself to thank his lucky stars for Sarala. He doesn’t do it nearly enough.)

‘I wasn’t going to!’ 

‘I know you, Frederick Bradshaw. You were going to.’

‘ _I wasn’t going to!’_

‘That phone’s still going, dickheads!’ 

(They’re on day three of Oliver’s hangover. Kent had stopped feeling sorry for him after the first twelve hours.)

He turns over onto his back, drapes an arm across his eyes and groans against the light. ‘Piss off, Freddie.’

‘Kent, it’s your boss, so you’d better bloody well answer it before I do.’

For once, Kent agrees with him and grabs blindly at the device in the outstretched hand. He misses one too many times and Fred dumps the thing on his chest; the vibrating ringtone shakes his sternum. 

‘Thanks a lot,’ he grumbles, rolling from his back onto his side and fishing the phone from where it falls in between the cushions. Fred makes some sort of grunting noise and earns himself a wobbly two-fingered salute. 

When Kent does manage to pull his mobile free from the fabric, he swipes his thumb across the screen and holds it to his ear. He automatically barks ‘Kent,’ into the microphone in lieu of a greeting even though he’s still dozy enough to not really know what he’s doing. He’s only vaguely registered that it’s Chandler’s name on his caller ID and not Skip’s. 

‘Thank fuck for that,’ Oliver mutters, head propped in his hands.

‘You’re a twat, Ol.’

(Kent’s not heard a more accurate description of Oliver in years, but Sarala’s always had a way with words.)

The news has morphed into Top Gear while he’s been asleep, and the last thing he needs with Chandler on the phone is Jeremy Clarkson wittering on about turbo engines. Kent motions wildly to Freddie, who feigns ignorance with a slice of toast hanging out of his mouth before slinging the remote in Kent’s general direction. It clips him around the eyebrow.

‘Ow.’ 

Kent’s glare and Fred’s tittering overlap with Chandler’s greeting. The yelp that escapes Fred’s lungs when a paperback meets the back of his head overtakes Chandler’s second try. Kent is toying with the idea of throwing a nearby decorative geode when Chandler’s adamant voice distracts him.

‘Kent!’

‘Sorry, sir, just administering the law.’ He settles for brandishing the sparkling rock in Fred’s general direction.

Chandler sighs. ‘Do I want to know?’

‘I’m not sure if what I just did constitutes assault, but I assure you, sir, it was warranted.’

‘No, it wasn’t!’ shouts Freddie from where he’s stood peering into the depths of their fridge. ‘You were just being a first-class arsehole!’ 

Kent rakes a hand through his already-mussed hair. ‘Ignore him.’ 

‘Your flatmates sound pleasant.’ 

Between cursing his flatmates for their propensity for embarrassing him and wondering exactly why he was on the phone with his DI without any mention of a new body, Kent can’t quite tell if Chandler’s trying to be light-hearted or not. 

He decides its probably safe to risk it. ‘That’s just one of them. I reckoned one bad apple out of three was the best I could hope for.’

‘Come off it, you love me!’ 

‘Piss _off_ , Freddie!’ Kent swivels where he’s sat in order to fix the back of his flatmate’s head with a brief warning glare. ‘Sorry, sir.’

‘It’s quite all right.’

Even as he says it, Kent doesn’t think so. There has to be a reason that Chandler had phoned him well out of hours, and all the possibilities Kent can come up with don’t have the time for dodgy second-hand banter with his civilian flatmates. Chandler tolerated it at the station—even occasionally joined in—but that was just part of the job. When they all called each other after the shift it was usually because there was something to be done. So there must be a reason. He might as well ask.

‘Has something come up?’

His heart leaps at the suggestion. It’s been two days and they’ve got nothing. Absolutely nothing. They had more on the Ripper. The search of the fishing pond in Victoria Park turned up little more than a few old beer bottles. Forensics had come up equally empty-handed; there was nothing beside fabric fibers under her fingernails, and little to no DNA that would be passable in court. The tox screen was clear save for what would amount to a small glass of wine. They can’t even figure out why she was in the park at all at that time of night, although they had to admit it wouldn’t be difficult for anyone to get in after hours if they wanted to. No one has an apparent motive and everyone’s got an alibi. And no matter how hard he tries, Kent’s spent forty-eight hours on the phone but can’t turn up anyone with a link to their victim. There’s far too many people with the surname ‘Fox,’ and all he’s got for his pains is Riley waggling her eyebrows at him and asking if he’s found Laurence Fox’s address yet.

Chandler sighs. ‘No, nothing like that.’

‘Oh, right.’

Now he’s really not sure what on earth he’s doing on the phone at all. It isn’t as if he and Chandler have made a habit of ringing each other for no apparent reason after hours apart from when they’ve got a body on their hands, and that’s already more often than it should be. He’d just ask why but the last time he’d done that he’d done something incredibly stupid so it’s probably best to avoid that as much as possible. But… if Chandler does need something, whatever that could be, then it’s important enough to break protocol for it. 

And, after all, Kent still wonders.

So he takes a deep breath that isn’t steadying enough as he rises to his feet, and asks. ‘Is there anything the matter?’

The other man doesn’t respond immediately, but Sarala seeks out Kent’s eye with a concerned glance. He wills himself to walk—anywhere, in circles if he has to but it’s better than sitting there picking at the fraying edges of their cushions, and tries to quell her interest with a shrug and a single shake of his head. Oliver mutters something about ‘not bothering’ and ‘they’re all bonkers anyway,’ but Kent ignores him.

Chandler, on the other hand, seems to need time to contemplate his answer. ‘Not really.’ He pauses. ‘I don’t think so.’

Kent doesn’t really know what to say. He knows about Chandler, he knows how he can get, he’s been the direct recipient of _how he can get_ but he’s never had to face it quite so plainly. Of course, Chandler’s trying to conceal, to be obtuse, but Kent can see through it enough to suspect. He searches his mind for the appropriate turn of phrase, but the silence stretches on long enough for even Fred to turn at peer at him, mirroring Sarala’s expression as he was occasionally known to do. 

It just makes Kent go uncomfortably hot.

‘What do you want me to do, sir?’ Kent asks, finally, as he wanders towards the hall.

Chandler struggles around words that seem lodged in his throat. ‘I’m at my flat.’

‘The question still remains.’ 

The retort is quick as it slips out of Kent’s lips, and for a moment he smiles to himself. It’s almost as if they’ve never kissed—

‘Kent.’

‘Sir?’

‘I think I could do with some company.’

‘Oh.’

Kent’s stomach sinks and rises to his throat simultaneously. It settles for an unsettling lurch that stops him dead in his tracks, halfway between Oliver’s moping and the tempting quiet of his bedroom. He forces a deep breath in and out, but he’s reaching for his keys on the side table before he realises he’s doing it. The metal clatters against glass and ceramic, and the zip of his jacket drags over the back of a chair. Even so, Chandler says nothing, and it’s difficult enough to balance his phone between his ear and shoulder while trying to lace a pair of trainers so Kent doesn’t really think about it being awkward. 

It’s when he can hear the click of a glass and the rattle of an unscrewed cap that he gets nervous. Not for himself; no, just for Chandler, because he knows. Miles told him, not long after the Kray case. Kent still isn’t sure why he did it. Whether Miles had thought he’d deserved to know something about the boss after what Chandler had done to him had popped into his head, once, but he’d dismissed it. They’d never been that sort of team. That was why if Skip wanted to tell him something, he could be sure that Kent wouldn’t spread it around. Why would he want to, anyway?

Kent clears his throat. ‘See you in a bit, then, sir.’

The words don’t come out quite right, the vowels hitched and the rhythm off-beat. Chandler doesn’t seem to notice.

‘Mmhm.’ 

He can almost hear him swallow. Kent is tempted to stay on, to ask if he’s all right, to make sure he’s all right, but instead he bundles his helmet under his arm and locks the door behind him.

*

He’s only ever been to Chandler’s flat once, when they’d been out on inquiries and a pigeon had mistaken Chandler’s shoulder for a toilet bowl. Kent had been left loitering in the corridor for so long while the boss changed his suit that he could probably identify the flat by the brush marks in the paint on the opposite wall. There’s no need, though; it had only taken a fraction of the time for him to memorize the number.

Chandler buzzes him in without a word, and Kent fiddles with with the zip on his jacket in the mirrored lift, trying not to catch a glimpse of himself and feel self-concious. He gets halfway up before it occurs to him that he probably should have paid more attention to where he’d parked his moped, but the doors open with a ‘ _ping_ ’ before he can decide what to do about it. The corridors are suitably bland, just on the right side of fashionable to not be offensively so, and the numbers on Chandler’s door glint as Kent approaches.

He knocks before he has a chance to get nervous. The intervening time gives him ample opportunity to do that, as he stands there listening to Chandler’s steps. Why phone him? Him, of all people? Kent supposes they were close, once, _before_ , but they’d never been that close. They definitely hadn’t been in each other’s pockets. Yet there he is, standing in front of Chandler’s front door as the latch slides open, answering a late night call from his superior and only having second thoughts as the wood gives way to Chandler’s familiar suit.

Kent’s been alone in his head too long for words to come out naturally. ‘Hello,’ he tries, although the letters stick in his throat. 

‘Come in,’ Chandler says, stepping back from the doorway to give him space.

He’s too calm by half, Kent reckons, but he follows his lead. There’s a guarded look on his face, too, but one that he doesn’t quite think is for his benefit. One that goes up when Chandler’s closer to the edge than he’d like—but there’s no way for Kent to know which edge in particular, and with Chandler there are a few. 

The first thing he notices once he’s stepped into the flat and Chandler’s shutting the door behind him, fingers testing the lock, is the neat pair of shoes next to the door. For a moment Kent seriously considers pausing and toeing his Converse off; they’re inevitably more grubby than Chandler’s oxfords but he can’t quite bring himself to do it. Chandler doesn’t ask, and it’s probably a bit presumptuous to just do it, so Kent doesn’t. He’s still overly aware of it, though, and the fact he keeps his light jacket on even after Chandler offers his helmet a resting place on the hall table just augments each movement with rustling. But he won’t be there long, will he? Probably not. Better safe than sorry.

Chandler frowns at him as they emerge into the sitting room. ‘Were you asleep?’

‘You can tell?’

The question slips out before Kent can really think about it; he’s just a bit too edgy to really think things through before he says them. He’s not sure whether or not that’s a good thing. At least he’s not got the mental capacity to feel panicky anymore. Just… wary. 

‘Uh—just—’ Chandler searches for words but doesn’t find them. ‘Never mind.’

In that moment, Chandler seems more unsettled than Kent feels. Right. Okay. A relatively level playing field, then. He carries himself as normal; or, at least, as normal used to be. Before. Kent can’t help but watch Chandler’s mouth as it fumbles around familiar phrases. It’s—well, it’s lovely in its own way, that those lips can shout orders and lose words and stutter out apologies as well as press unforgettable kisses against Kent’s skin. 

It’s a good job they were unforgettable, though, isn’t it? Since it’s not likely to happen again. No more reminders, no more refresher courses, just a mingled sense of elation and regret. The now familiar sinking feeling reappears in Kent’s stomach, but something about Chandler keeps it from weighing too heavily. The grip on his half-full glass, the abandonment of his vocal ability to a jumble of half-hearted syllables, the way he stands in his own home as if it’s someone else’s; Kent can’t place what it is, but there’s something and it anchors him, keeps him there while Chandler stands before him and perhaps, just perhaps, lets him guess what he needs. Because God knows if Chandler will tell him. 

Funnily enough, that’s how it’s always been. For Kent, anyway.

‘Not properly. Never quite made it into bed. I’d go for a cup of tea, though.’

Chandler looks appalled that he didn’t think of it first. ‘Oh, of course—’

‘Do you want me to do it?’ Kent interrupts. He can’t bear the self-deprecation in Chandler’s voice. ‘You look like you’ve got your hands a bit full there, sir.’

Chandler’s gaze follows Kent’s nod towards the lowball glass encased in his fingers. He doesn’t quite look like he recognizes it, and for a moment it seems as if he might just decide to get rid of it, but instead he returns his tired eyes to Kent’s and sighs. ‘Yes, all right.’ He gestures vaguely towards the warmly-lit granite counters at his back. ‘Tea’s in the top left cupboard.’

Kent offers him a small smile, because even though it’s awkward he still cares, and he’s pleased to get the ghost of one in return.

He didn’t know why, but he’d expected a full china tea set or, failing that, at least a relatively posh teapot. But all that’s there is the same teabags that Kent buys and some mugs that he could swear he recognizes from the Ikea catalogue. Then again, if he thinks about it, you’re not supposed to wash teapots, are you? Kent can’t imagine Chandler being comfortable not cleaning something, so it all makes sense, really.

The ritual’s much the same as well—kettle, boil, mug, bag—even in Chandler’s immaculate flat, and Kent throws himself into it as much as he can. Naturally, he’s more careful than he would be in his own kitchen, but Chandler leaves him to it and that gives him a modicum of relief. For a brief moment he’d wondered if Chandler would shadow him, hover over his shoulder; that wouldn’t have helped the situation, whatever it was. Instead Kent can hear him in the other half of the open-plan room, soft steps until they stop and the cushions of the sofa protest against an applied weight.

Words pop into his head as he presses the bag against the side of the mug, some even form sentences as he adds the milk, others go for questions as he wipes the end of the detritus from the surface and throws the folded kitchen towel in the spotless bin. None of them make it into existence outside of the confines of his skull. Chandler isn’t forthcoming either, and Kent concludes that he’s been summoned there anyway and he should just follow Chandler’s lead. It’s never failed him too badly before. His own autonomy is much more questionable. 

Kent picks the full mug up by the sliver of ceramic that isn’t heated from within, careful not to walk so quickly as to let the liquid slosh around, and focuses on looping his fingers around the handle as he approaches the back of Chandler’s blond head. The man’s not sat back, not at all, and there’s a tension in his spine that threads down the muscles in both arms as he braces himself against his knees. Kent feels for him, he really does, and the question that got him into so much trouble last time taps at the back of his teeth. He tries to ignore it, push some other words into position that wouldn’t be quite so suggestive. _What’s the matter, sir_? is too familiar, too forward for his taste. _Feeling any better now, sir?_ is slightly patronizing, self-aggrandizing. _Why exactly am I here, sir?_ is a more accurate representation of his thoughts but Kent’s not sure he can palate the answer.

It’s wishful thinking to hope that his tea would be enough of a prop to hide behind already. Kent scalds his tongue as he buys more time, and eventually has to settle on a safe enough question. ‘Is it anything in particular, sir?’

‘I don’t—’ Chandler stumbles but refuses to look into Kent’s direction. He speaks to the area rug instead. ‘I don’t find this easy. Going home, forgetting, compartmentalizing…’

‘I don’t think any of us do, sir.’

But look around the flat. Not a hair out of place, like a show home. Kent has an odd feeling that this isn’t how Miles copes. Or any of them, for that matter. But he knew that, didn’t he? He knew that going in. Now he’s clutching a mug that he isn’t sure he can ever put down.

Kent steadies the ceramic with splayed fingers across the base, and takes a careful seat next to Chandler. The first thing he notices beyond the fact that the DI’s turned to look at him is that the furniture plainly isn’t for relaxing. Maybe it’s just because his own sofa’s been on the receiving end of a lot of battering and therefore submits to anyone, but Kent can’t really pick anything out in the room that’s decidedly Chandler’s. Except, perhaps, the distinct lack of haphazard clutter.

But how would he know?

‘You’re doing your best, sir,’ he says, blowing gently on the surface of his tea before chancing another sip.

Chandler makes an uncomfortable sounding noise in his chest and raises his own glass. ‘It’s never really been enough before, has it?’

There’s no way Kent can lie about that. He can understand what Chandler means, can understand that what you feel sometimes doesn’t align with reality but it doesn’t make it any less real. They’ve never brought in a suspect alive on any of the major cases, never managed to get that elusive thing called closure that all the newspapers seem to want. And of course Chandler’s the scapegoat, the stunned deer-in-headlights under headlines, and of course it takes something out of them all. 

‘We’re trying,’ Kent continues, careful, softly. Chandler watches him from over the glass rim. ‘That’s all we can do.’

Chandler looks like he’s not sure, like he can’t quite understand why Kent’s saying this to him but holds his gaze anyway, just for good measure. Kent turns away first, back to the familiar warmth of liquid that still stings his tongue as he swallows. It doesn’t bother him enough to put him off taking another mouthful, and another, while he waits for Chandler’s response. If there ever would be one—it takes too long and Kent chances another look, a second lingering glance that doesn’t just look at Chandler’s face but at each part of him, the small furrow between his brows and the tension in his jaw and the way he’s turned back to the carpet. The skin under his eyes is the color of ash—Kent hadn’t noticed before in the terrible lighting at the station—and there’s that way Chandler’s face changes when he’s reaching the end of his tether, a tightness that’s never there when he’s pleased. He looks like a child well past his bedtime, overworked and overstressed and altogether too hard on himself.

He has to ask. He doesn’t even try to stop himself, just forces his tongue to choose its words delicately.

‘Did you come home last night, sir?’

There’s a heavy pause, then: ‘Yes.’

Kent just looks at him and sighs. ‘Did you come home and _sleep_ last night, sir?’

‘No.’ Chandler’s answer is quick, resigned, like he can’t help himself. Kent doesn’t respond, keeps his eyes on the side of Chandler’s head until the DI can’t do anything but turn to answer him. ‘There’s too much time to think in the evenings.’

Kent recognizes the gravity in Chandler’s words but can’t bring himself to comment on it. ‘At least you’ve got the quiet.’

‘That’s true.’ A self-concious smile appears. ‘How long have you lived with them?’

‘Too long.’

Chandler laughs then, a proper chuckle, and it’s his slightly lighter smile that makes the knot in Kent’s stomach loosen.

‘You don’t get much thinking done with that racket,’ he continued, brave with his words for once.

‘You seem to manage.’

Kent doesn’t quite know what Chandler’s implying; he knows what he’d like him to be implying, what he’s asked him to imply hundred of times before but never quite received when unsolicited, but half of his mouth smiles and it’s hard to stop himself from being pleased. ‘You get used to it. The station’s not exactly the place for meditation, either, but we do quite well.’ 

He doesn’t really know what he’s suggesting with that ‘ _we_ ,’ either, but they both seem to be playing on the safe side of double meanings. It coaxes something out of Chandler, a little bit of himself that isn’t half-devoured by doubt, and maybe that’s why he rung him. Distraction. An acknowledgement, a quiet murmuration that no, he’s not completely out of his depth and he’s not the only one of them that goes home and leaves his head at his desk, a gentle offering of a hand and a quick heave to pull him out.

Maybe that’s what Skip means when he says Chandler needs nannying.

(Kent reckons he could do that, until he remembers what he’s already done and relishes the sting of heat against his fingers as he listens to Chandler’s voice at his side, feels the slight shift of the frame as he leans just that bit closer and Kent grips even tighter.)

Conversation comes almost as it did before, before _it_ had happened and they’d kept their conversation close to work, kept their interaction well within the realms of the station and the ranks on their warrant cards. Before long Kent’s managed to bring a slight smile to Chandler’s face more than once, although never quite got it to stick, and he’s run out of tea. Chandler’s more judicious, still swirling a small amount of vodka around the bottom of his glass. For a split second Kent’s breathing hitches as he wonders how many Chandler’s had—it had taken him some time to cross London, after all—but he seems all right, if oddly forthcoming. Though that does sometimes happen; the evening at those crossroads had lingered at the edges of Kent’s mind for hours as he tried to sleep that night.

Whether it’s his own nature or the overwhelming feeling that he’s sat in Chandler’s sitting room at gone eleven, Kent doesn’t know, but the longer he looks at the cold dregs of his tea the more he wants to rinse the mug out.

‘I’ll just—’ he begins, gesturing with the almost-empty ceramic as he heaves himself to his feet.

‘Don’t worry about that,’ Chandler interrupts, and he makes to stand as well but stops when Kent holds out an outstretched palm to stop him.

‘You’re all right, sir,’ he says, a small apologetic smile appearing at the corner of his mouth. ‘I helped myself, after all.’

Chandler’s mouth is slack, slightly parted as he looks up at Kent. He looks as if he might say something, so Kent pulls his hand back and buries it in his pocket for the short walk to the ktichen sink. The water runs with a familiar hiss, a typical spray against stainless steel and the tint of tea trails down the drain well before Kent’s ready to turn back and sit down again. Instead, he stands and holds the ceramic under the continuous stream, painfully aware that his heart skips a few beats in its haste to pick up speed when he hears Chandler get to his feet.

He doesn’t know what to do next, with his hands or his voice or his mind, so he focuses on pulling the tea towel free from where it hangs and wraps it carefully around the mug. Kent concentrates on trying not to drop it instead of trying to place the direction of Chandler’s footsteps.

‘Kent.’

It’s just a statement, not an order like his name can sometimes sound in Chandler’s voice, so Kent finishes drying the mug and places it on the draining board with a deft flick of his wrist. ‘Hmm?’

He folds the tea towel in his hands carefully, matching each corner with its opposite double and threading it through the handle on the dishwasher. He expects an immediate response, a statement that comes out as easily as their conversation just had, but when more than enough times passes to qualify as a confounded silence he glances to the side trying to find a concrete reason why.

Chandler stands next to him, silent but plainly battling the words in his head, a conversation Kent can’t be privy to. His fingers flex against the faceted glass in his hand, and Kent waits. He can’t do much else. He doesn’t particularly want to do much else, not when they’re on the cusp of something so close. 

‘Sir?’ 

Something uncomfortable flits over Chandler’s features. Then he’s cupping Kent’s cheek, a thumb running along his cheekbone, and their noses graze one another—the hesitation before the inevitable. There’s a single, suspended second of nothingness before Chandler leans in and brushes his lips against Kent’s, his eyes wide open. Kent resists the urge to smile—grin—when Chandler puts a fraction of space between them and waits, as if waiting to be struck down. They’re not, and he presses his mouth to Kent’s again, just that bit harder. Kent presses back and wraps an arm around Chandler’s waist. The taller man opens his mouth, probably more out of shock than anything else, and Kent falls forward into the space it opens up.

It’s warm— _they’re_ warm—and Kent doesn’t stop his hand from fisting in the fabric of Chandler’s shirt as he tilts his head back, encouraging the experimental nip of canine at the edge of his bottom lip. It’s tentative and comforting all at once, the slide of Chandler’s tongue against his own, but it feels right to press closer, to nudge their noses together as he makes a pleased sort of grunt. Even the press of Chandler’s glass against the base of his ribs feels familiar until it gets in the way, and there’s something reverent in the way Chandler lets Kent pull it out of his grip and shove it onto the pristine countertop. This time Chandler lets him chase, as well, for when he pulls away Kent drags him back with a hand on his nape. 

When they do part to catch their breath, they don’t go very far and Kent’s tempted to rest his forehead against Chandler’s.

‘Do you know why you did that, then, sir?’ Kent’s rather proud that he doesn’t sound quite as breathless as he feels.

‘Not exactly,’ Chandler murmurs, cocking an eyebrow but making no move to shift Kent’s hand. ‘Maybe to get you to stop calling me ‘ _sir_ ’ in my own home…’ 

‘Sir.’

There’s a sly grin playing on his face, and Kent knows it; he finds he likes the expression it plucks from Chandler’s features. He likes how his mouth goes just a little bit slack if he slides his fingers in the ends of Chandler’s hair, how he blinks heavily when Kent’s thumb traces the hinge of his jaw, how he exhales a pent-up breath through his nose when Kent recaptures his mouth and kisses him properly.

‘What was that for?’ Chandler asks when Kent releases him, eyes searching.

‘What do you think it was for?’ Kent says, smiling in the face of Chandler’s apparent confusion. ‘The sheer novelty of being able to act on a familiar impulse.’

‘Familiar?’

Kent hums his assent.

The implication dawns on Chandler’s face slowly, and Kent drains what’s left of Chandler’s drink into his mouth. The burn just reminds him that he’s standing there, in Chandler’s kitchen, drinking Chandler’s vodka after tasting it on the man’s tongue. He contemplates pouring another measure before he turns back to his companion. Kent recognizes the expression—knows it very well, in fact—but can’t quite understand the restraint expressed in almost all of Chandler’s musculature. He doesn’t want it to be there, not really. Not at all.

‘I don’t mind, you know.’

‘What?’ Chandler sounds distracted.

Kent grins, and gestures between the both of them. ‘You can do that again, if you want.’

For a moment, Kent’s heart sinks as he anticipates another about-face, but Chandler sighs instead and rubs a hand across the back of his neck. ‘Am I that clueless?’ 

‘A bit,’ Kent says, a smile still playing against the edges of his mouth. He turns and leans against the counter, head twisted to hold Chandler’s questioning gaze. ‘About some things. _These_ sorts of things,’ he clarified, not trying to undermine his earlier self. ‘I did sort of start it, though.’

Chandler relaxed, his smile just that bit looser. ‘Good thing you can translate.’

Kent thinks he’s been doing that since day one, since that first ill-fated stakeout on Brick Lane, but he doesn’t say it. His beeping phone cuts in before either of them can gather enough thoughts to verbalize, and Kent shoves a hand into his jacket to fish it out of its usual pocket.

_Alright?_

_Yeah, not work. Back soon._

Somehow Kent thinks that his interpretation of soon might be different than Sarala’s. The reminder that he was pointedly not there for any reason to do with work wasn’t particularly welcome, either. It’s odd to think that there he is, kissing Joseph Chandler in his bloody kitchen, while they have an unsolved murder still pinned to the whiteboard. The fact that he’s standing there at all and his knees haven’t given out from under him is just short of miraculous. 

His phone beeps again. _Ol wants crisps. Says he’ll pay you back._

‘I’d best go. I’ve got a hungover roommate demanding crisps.’ 

Chandler looks at him as if he’s just announced he’s planning to start breeding toads in the basement.

‘He’s been hungover for seventy-two hours,’ Kent continues, in way of explanation. Although it’s not much of one.

‘That’s… impressive?’

He smirks. ‘You’d think it would be, if said roommate wouldn’t just admit he’s getting a bit old for all-night vodka binges.’

Kent doesn’t miss the guilty glance Chandler shoots the half-empty bottle on the counter as he’s typing back a reply. _Unlikely. Flavour?_

_Salt and vinegar, please and thank you._

He’s surprised when Chandler leans into the hand he places on the taller man’s waist as he types with the other. He hadn’t even really meant to do it at all, but that seems to be the precursor to everything that had happened in this particular vein over the past few days, so Kent just goes with it. It works, apparently.

_Are these for you or him?_

Chandler tenses when the hand ducks low on his back; Kent draws away, trailing his fingers across fabric until he could feel the base of shoulder blades. One step at a time. Don’t get overzealous. It’s never as easy as it first seems.

_I choose not to answer for fear I may incriminate myself, Constable._

‘Great, now all of them want crisps,’ Kent mutters as he pulls his hand back to type. He doesn’t miss the low shiver of Chandler’s musculature.

_I’ll try and find a multipack._

‘You’d think they think I spent my days making the tea instead of actually doing any investigating.’

Another laugh manages to escape Chandler’s chest, and the moment that accompanies the noise brushes their shoulders together. Kent tries to keep the smile that emerges facing his mobile as he awaits an acknowledgement from Sarala. It doesn’t come—not quickly enough, anyway—and he slips the phone back into his pocket, careful to bump their elbows. Just because he might be able to, now.

‘I should probably make sure they’re not losing me my deposit,’ Kent says, the excuse exaggerated but only because he knows that his spending a long time at Chandler’s flat can be as easily overplayed.

‘Yeah, all right,’ Chandler replies, his hand hovering just clear of Kent’s back as he accompanies him to the door. ‘I suppose I could at least try and get some sleep.’

‘Please do, sir.’

Chandler frowns a bit at that, quiet as Kent collects his helmet and bundles it under his arm, but there’s an undercurrent of understanding. There were navigating murky waters and need to create their own lines now that they’ve crossed all the usual ones.

Kent smiles at him, as open as he’s always been, but when he reaches for the door handle Chandler’s voice reaches out for him.

‘So, um—we’re not going to talk about this?’

‘Do you want to? It seems self-explanatory to me.’

‘Does it?’

Kent can see the flaw in his argument—no, it’s most definitely _not_ self-explanatory, because there’s about a hundred and one questions dashing across the front of his brain and he doesn’t know where to start. But that’s precisely the point; he’s sure it’ll come up, and the conversation will happen soon enough, but he doesn’t want it yet. Enough’s happened already, and he can’t trust himself to get through another discussion about it now. He needs the time to work it through, somewhere inbetween trying to hunt down a killer and catching up on sleep. From the look on Chandler’s face, Kent would guess he feels the same.

‘If I know you at all, you wouldn’t have done anything at all if you weren’t prepared for it, on some level.’

Chandler lets out a bitter, truncated laugh. ‘You’ve got more faith in me plus a few drinks than anyone should, Emer—’

‘Please don’t feel free to call me Emerson.’

Kent doesn’t think he’s ever seen someone recoil quite like Chandler does.

‘No, it’s not that.’ He reaches out and wraps his fingers around Chandler’s forearm, the grip gentle but enough to pull the taller man’s gaze back to his own. ‘It’s just that no one does.’

‘Really?’ 

He shakes his head. ‘No derivatives, either. I’ve always been Kent, really, except to my mum. She chose the bloody thing, after all.’

Chandler’s mouth twitches into half a smile. ‘You don’t sound pleased.’

‘I’ve never been more displeased.’ Kent feels a mirrored expression appear on his own face. It undermines his words.

‘Kent, then.’

‘Joe.’

‘I’ve got no complaints about my name.’

‘Then you’ll have no complaints about my using it.’

And somehow that’s how they’re speaking about themselves, about what they were embarking on. Names. DI Joseph Chandler becomes _Joe_ in Kent’s mouth, and DC Emerson Kent is just a hushed whisper of _Kent_ as Chandler ties it around his tongue. And maybe that’s why Chandler smiles, why he wraps an arm around Kent’s shoulders and pulls him to his chest, why he deposits the helmet on the side table and why he nudges their mouths together for the nicest goodbye kiss Kent’s ever experienced. 

*

Chandler hadn’t meant to phone Kent. He’d just… done it. 

And somehow they’d gone from a relatively professional conversation about how to cope with the cases to snogging in the kitchen, and Chandler knows he hadn’t planned on that. He’d barely even thought of it as an option at all. But he’d done it, he’d stood up and walked over to Kent and kissed him, and Kent had kissed him back. Again. After he’d brushed him off. After they’d crossed that threshold, took two massive steps back and hadn’t spoken of it again.

Yet, somehow, here he is, sat at his kitchen table twenty-four hours later with an open case file and—apparently—a relationship.

That’s new.

That’s _very_ new.

Chandler doesn’t even know what it is, not really, and he’s had paltry experience with relationships at all, let alone a relationship with one of his officers. He knows that it isn’t exactly unheard of—there are always rumours, and more than half the time they’re proven right—but, God, _him_? 

Apparently.

He drags a hand across his face, and the edge of his ring catches the seam of the cut on his nose. He flinches, the skin still sore, but doesn’t draw blood like the first time he’d absent-mindedly done it. Chandler blinks through the sting, hoping that the forms and crime scene photographs might start to sink in soon, but when his mind wanders he gives up and busies himself with a cup of tea. It doesn’t help, and when he sits down again he still can’t place anything, can’t quite concentrate. He wasn’t kidding when he said there was too much empty time in the evenings, too much quiet; thoughts thrived on quiet, whether he wanted it or not. 

Chandler still can’t quite believe what he’s—they’ve—done but he can’t bring himself to regret it either. Work had been easier than this, even with Kent sitting at his desk or hovering in a group of officers or brightly listening to the day’s briefings. Their coexistence didn’t feel as tense, as thick in the air as it had been in the days after Miles’ party. They’d been nothing but professional, with just the occasional shared half-smile, but the mutual acknowledgement somehow allowed Chandler to push those musings aside, keep them safe for later, and get on with the job at hand.

Which he’d managed to do. At the station. Not that they’d got very far. The most productive thing they’ve managed to do was double-check and cross-reference alibis, all of which checked out. Chandler sincerely hopes this isn’t another of their dead-end cases, another anonymous killing that might just stay that way; that was why the case file’s open on his kitchen table at one in the morning. They might have missed something, but the longer he looks at it the more difficult it is to see at all.

He’s just about to start again from the beginning when his mobile buzzes where it sits next to his elbow, the glass tabletop augmenting the sound to one that just might as well have been a ringtone. Chandler makes an exasperated sound, expecting to find Miles’ name on the screen as he takes a closer look (and he’s fairly confident that a phone call from Miles at this time of night will be problematic news at the very least), but it tapers out when he’s greeted with Kent’s name instead. 

He answers on the third ring. ‘Hello.’ 

‘Sorry about the time.’

Kent’s voice is little more than a rumble, but he sounds much more awake than someone who’d recently been sound asleep.

‘I could say the same,’ Chandler replies, his fingers trying to smooth out an accidental crease on the file’s top right corner. ‘I thought you were generally in favour of sleep?’ 

Kent groans as if Chandler’s brought up an irritating subject. ‘Look, I don’t mean to presume but can I come round?’

The slightly panicky streak of Chandler’s nature snaps as Kent’s wearied words sink in. He’s held the fold down long enough to dogear the folder itself by the time he regains a semblance of control over his extremities. 

‘I can’t sleep,’ he continues, correctly interpreting Chandler’s mildy stunned silence. ‘Ol’s making some awful godforsaken racket and I could really do with a decent night’s rest for once.’

An almost-forgotten chuckle worms its way out of Chandler’s chest. ‘I was just about to ask what that was.’

Kent huffs, and makes a sound that must come from heaving himself into a sitting position. ‘You should have heard it two hours ago.’

Chandler’s surprised that Kent had put up with it for that long.

It’s the same for everyone, though, isn’t it? No one can sleep after being disturbed severely enough, and sometimes the mere fact sleep is eluding the mind is enough to conjure up irrational aggravation. The stages are the same, familiar: the getting annoyed at the entire situation, at the noise, at the inefficient walls, at the useless duvet, at the flattening pillows, at the overwarm bed sheets that would be nice if you’d only have the chance to wake up in them instead of just feeling them slowly heat around skin, the hour after hour of staring into the darkness, watching London seep in around the edges of the curtains. That’s why Chandler rarely bothers anymore, not when he isn’t likely to sleep anyway. 

‘You don’t mind me asking, do you?’

Kent’s voice snaps Chandler’s mind back into the right place; there’s a slight waver at the end, a shiver of uncertainty and self-conciousness.

‘Of course not,’ he says, the answer coming easily from where it once sat hidden away. ‘I could give you a lift—’ 

‘No, I’ll be fine.’ The answer’s hurried, and there’s plenty of rustling that Chandler can only assume is the duvet bearing the brunt of whatever’s left of Kent’s frustration. ‘Thanks, though.’

There’s a pause, and the immediate background noise comes to a sudden stop, and then: ‘You weren’t asleep, were you?’

‘No.’ Chandler frowns at his own reflection in the table. He can’t think where Kent would have got that idea from.

‘Oh. Good,’ Kent says, rough around the edges and punctuated by him clearing his throat. ‘Right. I’ll see you, then.’

*

Kent knocks on his door not twenty minutes later, the tops of his cheeks still flushed pink from the nighttime cold. From the looks of him, he’s just pulled a jacket and shoes on over pajamas, and Chandler can’t ignore the immediate rush of panic that flushes through him. He’s seen too many people come off motorbikes without the proper leathers, but Kent’s only on a moped, and there’s a difference, isn’t there? Chandler shakes the thought and invites Kent in with an apprehensive smile.

‘You didn’t have any trouble on the way out?’

‘I don’t think they noticed me leave,’ Kent replies as he toes off his shoes at the door. ‘There’s a lot of coming and going round ours, as you might expect.’

Chandler can’t help but wonder, prompted by the reminder of what Kent’s voice sounds like in the flesh. They’re different now, aren’t they? Not terribly different, if it was terribly different then they’d have to go back to normal because there’d be no point but… what was the expectation, now? Kent coming round in the middle of the night, voice rough and grateful; would be expect anything more than what had already gone on? Chandler can’t see why, but then again, he can’t see why not either. It’s the natural way for these relationships to go, anyway, and he and Kent already know each other well so that bit of the courtship ( _courtship_? Is that really the word his mind wants to use?) has passed without them knowing so where else is there to go apart from Chandler’s—

His heart’s pounding again.

‘Thanks,’ Kent says, interrupting the galloping train of thought with a chilled hand against the cuff of Chandler’s shirt. ‘For the sofa.’

Some part of Chandler’s body breathes a sigh of relief, and even in that moment he’s glad he manages not to show it externally. He doesn’t need to burden Kent with that now, even if he thinks he wants to know. As he thinks it Kent smiles at him, something knowing in the corner of his mouth, and for a moment there’s a still calm that spreads in the depths of Chandler’s chest—before he realises that if Kent can tell that much about him then he must be able to read the other signs. He knows he has them. But even so, Kent doesn’t mention it. He just turns back to where he’s folded his coat across the back of the armchair. 

‘I don’t know what I would have done if I had to stay in that flat for another five hours.’

Chandler’s tempted to suggest something along the lines of whatever Kent says to Mansell when he’s being an excessive version of himself; more than once he’s seen them have a terse word next to the water dispenser and the older constable’s got right back to work with little fuss. A bit of frustrated muttering, but no fuss. Chandler hasn’t even mastered that yet, but perhaps Kent’s flatmates don’t have the same sort of relationship with him. They sounded much, much more casual (if there was such a thing more casual than Mansell) on the phone.

He clears his throat. ‘May I inquire as to what exactly your flatmate was doing?’

‘God knows,’ Kent mutters as he unzips his jacket. ‘Though a reasonable guess would be banging pots and pans around in a fit of rage, judging from the noise. That or testing out new diving boots.’

Chandler chuckles as Kent shoots him a wry smile. ‘I won’t ask.’

‘I wouldn’t either. Sarala goes on a night shift and all hell breaks lose.’

It’s slightly concerning to him that Kent doesn’t seem to think the situation is in any way odd. Chandler knows he’s in no position to judge, if that’s even what he’s doing at all, but surely as his friend—or whatever they are now, they haven’t decided on that yet, have they?—then he has to wonder how healthy the arrangement is if Kent’s being chased out of his flat by raucous nocturnal activity on a regular basis.

‘Don’t worry, I’ll get him back eventually,’ Kent says, attracting Chandler’s attention once more. ‘Once I have the time to think it through. It’s not worth the shouting match now.’ He yawns, covering his mouth with a hand as he wrinkles his nose. ‘I could probably get a couple of pints out of it.’

‘I’ll just—’ Chandler motions somewhere over his shoulder; he’s only vaguely sure his hand is pointing to the direction he wants to go.

Kent nods, still recovering from the aftermath of his yawn, and turns to rummage through the pockets of his coat. Chandler makes his way to his paltry airing cupboard—he’s never really seen the point of having one before, not really, not before this—to retrieve the spare linens he keeps for emergencies. Not that this is an emergency. He’d like to think it isn’t, anyway. 

When he returns Kent’s sat on the sofa, propping up his head with one hand and flicking through something on his phone with the other, but he turns and gets up as soon as he hears Chandler’s returning footsteps.

‘Thanks for this,’ he says, stepping to meet Chandler halfway with a grateful expression. ‘You won’t even know I’ve been here.’

‘It’s not a problem.’

Kent looks at him as if expecting some other comment, like the fact that it isn’t exactly normal for the detective leading a case to lend his sofa out to his team at one in the morning (as if that’s the oddest thing that gone on between them), but Chandler doesn’t say anything. He hands the blankets and pillows over instead.

‘There’s more if you need them.’

‘No, this is fine.’ Kent smiles and pats one hand on top of the bundle. ‘Thanks.’

He’s doing that a lot. Thanking him. Chandler doesn’t quite feel like he deserves the gratitude. All he’s done is open his front door and point in the direction of his furniture. Is it really that important? It might be, judging by the way Kent glances at him as he shakes out the spare comforter, eyes soft but mouth pulled that bit too tight, like he’s thinking about something but hasn’t quite realised what it is yet. 

Chandler pulls himself away, intensely aware that he should probably let Kent get on with it. He’d been trying to get some sleep at home, after all, and he’d come there to get away from incessant noise, not to switch from inane noise to equally inane conversation. Chandler’s curious, but not curious enough to forget that they have a case, that there’s an early start the next morning, that they all have to look bright and chipper and stare at dead ends on the whiteboard for half past seven and the clock’s inching dangerously close to two. 

‘You don’t mind if I’m up for a bit?’ he asks as he makes his way back to the files, fingers outstretched before he’s even close enough to sit down.

‘No, it’s not light that bothers me.’ Kent’s voice floats up from where he’s settled. ‘It’s the bloody noise.’ 

‘Not my area of expertise, I’m afraid.’

There’s a sound that seems a little bit like a huffed laugh, a smothered grin in sound waves, but there are no more words.

The file doesn’t get any less opaque, not even with the extra time and determination, and eventually Chandler virtually gives up on trying to find anything. He flicks through the pages anyway, an easy way to put off going to bed and getting that one step closer to waking up in the morning, and listens to the novelty of a second person’s presence. Not that there’s much to go on: Kent had shifted once or twice, early on, but if Chandler really listens he can tell that Kent’s breathing has steadied, lengthened, snuffled once or twice but smoothed out with sleep. Maybe that’s why he’s hyperconscious of the sounds he’d usually ignore—the clink of a mug, the creak of a chair.

When Chander does get up he’s careful not to wake his guest, and gives his sleeping form a wide berth as he flicks off the rest of the lights, padding carefully against the floor although he knows it has no known creaks to speak of. He doesn’t want to linger, doesn’t want to be the person that perches on a nearby chair and watches somebody sleep, but the openness of Kent’s expression keeps him there for a second too long, leg poised to walk away but stilled. The quiet doesn’t feel quite so empty, not with this small addition, and Chandler’s not sure if that frightens him or not. But Kent is familiar, even curled into the cushions of his sofa, so when he reaches for the last switch it’s relatively simple just to flick it once.

(Relatively being the operative word.)

He pads towards the hall, eyes slowly adjusting to the darkness, and reaches an arm out to reassure himself he’s not about to clip his shoulder against a wall; that would defeat the whole point of trying to be quiet, after all. Chandler looks back from where he stands at the doorframe, the fingers of one hand clasping the wood, and suppresses the urge to tread through the darkened room and rest his other hand against the one Kent’s curled around the edge of his makeshift pillow.

‘Good night,’ he murmurs, gently, into the thin darkness.

* 

Chandler wanders out into his sitting room the next morning expecting to have a companion, but unless he’s happy to converse with the neatly-folded blankets and freshly plumped sofa cushions, he doesn’t have one. Kent’s true to his word—there’s not a single sign around the flat that he’s been there, beyond the obvious—but Chandler still feels the hollow sting of disappointment as he makes his way to the kitchen and doesn’t encounter the familiar dark mop of curls.

It’s almost as if he’s dreamt the entire thing. 

He doesn’t notice the new sticky note for an embarrassingly long time, but when he does it only takes a moment or two to place the handwriting. Chandler peels the paper from the front of the file—he’s not risking any sort of liquid near that, and it’s too early to forgo coffee—and reads it over the rim of his mug while he walks to open the curtains.

_Had a look at this, noticed something odd on the bank statement. Made a note of it for you. Gone in early to check it out._

The early morning sun does nothing to enlighten Kent’s meaning. Chandler takes one last look at the expanse of city on the other side of the glass in the only time it ever seems quiet, and returns to the file. Sure enough, there’s a light pencil arrow at the side of one of the charges; they hadn’t noticed it before, everything had seemed in order and no one who knew Lou thought there was anything funny about her finances. But another line links two charges together and in the midst of comprehension Chandler ignores his toast when it pops out of the toaster.

There’s nothing particularly obvious about it—there never is anything obvious when it comes to deciphering the gibberish that ends up on most bank statements—but as far as Chandler can tell there are two separate rent payments, and not for the same flat. He can’t be sure, of course, and God knows they’ve had some oddly labelled payments come through in their own audits but it’s something. 

Chandler folds the note into quarters between his fingers as he tips what’s left of his drink into the sink.

He’s never been a man to waste time, after all. 

* 

It takes them another twenty-four hours, but they find Lou’s brother in Wapping, of all places. Practically on their own doorstep.

As it turns out, Thomas Fox had recently returned to London after encountering some trouble elsewhere in the country; narcotics, mostly, but nothing was on his record apart from a couple of youth warnings. He’d contacted his sister and claimed he was trying to get clean. Lou, being who she was, found him somewhere to stay and helped him with the rent—with the stipulation ‘until he finds his feet.’ It hadn’t lasted long: she dropped in one afternoon and stumbled upon his stash, they’d had a shouting match and when he mentioned he was supposed to meet his supplier that evening she demanded to go instead, because ‘ _you’ve been doing so well, and you need to stop._ ’ 

Chandler’s jaw clenched when, during the interview, Thomas had shrugged one shoulder and muttered that it worked for him either way, so why would he have bothered stopping her? 

He pointed them in Alex Hudson’s direction—a name already known to one of Miles’ old friends in Vice—and ten minutes into a search of his flat they find a serrated fishing knife with a wooden handle, the grain stained dark. It’ll take forensic weeks to get back to them officially, but it’s enough to bring Hudson in on the appropriate charges. 

They clear off the whiteboard that evening.

Chandler is peeling the blue tac off the back of each photograph, resting the paper in a neat pile at the edge of the nearest desk, when Mansell proposes an evening down the boozer in Lou’s memory. They do a variant of it every time, sometimes in their local and sometimes crouched around whoever’s desk has a bottle hidden in a drawer, and Chandler finds himself agreeing. 

He wraps his coat around him as they walk against the wind towards their usual pub, and doesn’t immediately shrug out of it as they cross the threshold and Mansell offers to pay for the first round for once. Chandler can’t quite shake their faces, the family’s and the flatmate’s and the boyfriend’s, the nonchalant way her brother sent her into the fire, the needlessness of it all, and he doesn’t see the warm lights of the room until Kent’s hand brushes his arm as he pulls off his coat. The movement’s brief, barely there, but his murmured, ‘ _Sorry, sir_ ,’ and shy expression paints it as an accident. 

Chandler knows it isn’t, and the smile he supposes should be apologetic ends up as grateful. 

And as Miles always promises, he feels marginally better after the first pint.

Or maybe it’s the firm warmth of Kent’s thigh pressed against his under the table.

‘To Lou,’ Riley says, and the clink of all their mismatched glasses is more sombre than the rest of their conversation.

Chandler speaks when spoken to, and when a comment is easy to wring from his throat, but spends more time than he probably should glancing at Kent’s quiet smile, easy relation, while he sits close to Chandler’s side, all but possessive. But Chandler feels possessed, a bit. How can no one else notice? He feels warm, overly so, he can almost feel Kent’s (or is it his?) heartbeat through flesh. How can no one else feel it? Hear it? 

He hides behind his glass, but he’s long lost interest in refilling it. He might, just to avoid rousing their easily startled suspicions, but he doesn’t really know what’s suspicious anymore. Not when he feels like they’re sat there, blatant. Anything but discreet. But they are, aren’t they? Discreet. His mind can’t compute it. Not in this moment.

‘My round, I suppose,’ Chandler says when Miles looks around at them all expectantly, swirling the last of his beer around the bottom of the pint glass.

‘Good man.’

Chandler ignores Miles save for a brief glance, one that’s probably obviously uncomfortable, but that’s who he is, isn’t it? _He’s always uncomfortable_ —Miles had said it himself. He’s careful to avoid the backs of chairs as he weaves his way to the bar, both for the sake of not sending other people’s coats sailing towards the questionable floor and for his own comfort. A peal of laugher cuts through the healthy murmured undertone of the place and Chandler immediately identifies it as Riley, and the short amused grumble that follows as Mansell. Standing there, just too far away to really still be included, Chandler finds he misses the very contact that had so recently distressed him, the warmth of Kent’s body as well as his words and the familiarity of the team apparently not as much as a dichotomy as he’d thought. But that’s him, isn’t it, in another sort of nutshell? Walking paradox, reverse paradigm, perpendicular and parallel all at once. So busy wondering what he wants that all the options rush off without him.

The barkeep’s got a group on his hands—a pack of tourists, judging by the waistcoats with the multitude of pockets, trying their hand at playing local. Drawn by the blood on the streets, no doubt, the ghosts lurking in every shadowy doorstep. They always are. 

Chandler settles in for the wait—there are more of them than there are of him, and if he’s honest than he’d admit that he might just want to think for a moment, even if he does enough of that already. But he’s not always honest, and he’s a glutton for punishment. He wipes at the wood of the bar in front of him with a napkin, but balls the paper within his fist a moment later in an effort to stop.

‘I think you owe me a pint.’

Chandler starts; he hadn’t realised Kent had got up and followed him. For a moment he frowns, wondering how exactly that had happened; he’s not supposed to be easy to sneak up on, not as a Detective Inspector. Yet there Kent is, all shy half-smile and wide eyes. He leans both arms on the surface in front of them, and Chandler has to look away.

‘Do I?’ The words come out oddly detached, as half of Chandler’s mind reads the label on each bottle of gin on the back wall twice.

‘Most definitely, sir,’ Kent says with a smile, although he’s not obviously looking at him either. ‘I could be savoring the rare experience of having the flat to myself tonight.’

Chandler’s mind stops, wondering, and he lets his head turn. ‘Really?’

Kent catches the eye of the apologetic barman, but keeps on speaking to Chandler while they wait. ‘We’d best just hope that Ol and Fred don’t end up down the nick in the next ten hours. At least if they show up at the hospital then it’s Sarala’s lot’s problem and not ours.’

‘Fred’s the one I heard on the phone.’ The observation slips out unintentionally, a memory that Chandler only really half has.

‘Yeah.’ Kent chuckles, half his mouth in an attractive smile. ‘He still thinks he’s a student.’

Chandler raises a brow, dubious. He might be able to conceive of Kent living with a group of young-hearted twenty-somethings, but the can’t quite think of him putting up with typical student antics. Whatever those are these days. 

‘He’s more than a few years out.’ Kent grins at him, teeth and all. ‘Not that it ever stops him, or Oliver. But there’s usually someone cluttering up the place. When they all decide to go out together, at the same time, it’s a chance for peace and quiet I usually take.’

Just as Kent finishes speaking the barman comes over to them, leaving the other group with their spritzers. Chandler doesn’t have a chance to gather breath before Kent rattles off their usual order (although Chandler doesn’t miss that Kent’s changed his own drink—a convenient cover.) 

‘You don’t have to come to these, you know,’ Chandler says, leaning imperceptibly closer once the barkeep had turned his back, half wondering if he should add _not on my account._  

(Or is that too self-indulgent of him?)

‘Oh, no, it’s fine. It’s nice,’ Kent replies, placing one hand in his trouser pocket as he fixes Chandler with a brief significant look. ‘Anyway, they’ll all be out until morning. No one bursting into my bedroom while I’m trying to sleep.’ The look gets more depth, before Kent flounders around a hasty addition. ‘Not that that’s a usual occurrence, of course.’ 

‘I should hope it isn’t,’ Chandler says quickly, but his amused and gentle smile veils the thought that the slide of Kent’s eyes across his neck prompts, the brief flare of unexpected anticipation that appears in his chest as Kent licks his lips in the interim. The bare facts sit at the front of his mind: Kent’s flat, empty, will be all night, no risk. No, not no risk, there’s never no risk—minimal risk. Is he willing to chance it? Does he want to?

Kent looks at him, just looks, but when Chandler glances back he crooks a brow and smiles like he knows something no one else does. Which is true, Chandler supposes, but it still unsettles him—that, and the fact that he thinks he wants to. It’s only when their drinks arrive on the surface in front of them that Chandler wonders if Kent knows, if Kent can tell that he thinks he wants to. The brief nudge of the constable’s elbow against his own says that yes—yes, he does. 

‘I trust you can manage the rest, sir?’ Kent asks, pulling Chandler out of his own mind, as he nods to the drinks he’s not already picked up.

Chandler nods. He’s balanced enough glasses in his life, and it’s not that far to the table. Although it’s starting to feel a lot further away, with Kent’s gaze on his like this. His mind seems to have short-circuted, stuck in the face of what he thinks Kent’s saying. Hopes? He might be. His mouth’s gone dry. A second drink’s starting to sound like a better idea that it was five minutes ago, but Chandler does nothing about it. He’s not sure he can, so instead he acknowledges Kent with pursed lips and the constable nods at him, face straight, as he turns back to their normality.

Whatever that is anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 12 December 2013. 
> 
> Thanks again for all the lovely feedback! It made a rather rough weekend a lot brighter--here's to a better week! :)


	4. Chapter 4

Chandler excuses himself before anyone else has a chance; it’s more feasible that way, more expected. There’s a curve in Kent’s easy ‘Goodnight, sir,’ that solidifies his unspoken proposition. It makes Chandler’s heart takes up residence in his throat, and it hasn’t quite made its way back down into his chest by the time he’s parking at the end of Kent’s street.

The cool air has morphed into a tentative drizzle that slowly fills the windscreen the longer Chandler sits there, flexing his fingers against the steering wheel and glancing every so often towards the yellow glow of the closest street lamp. Even the continual water droplets aren’t loud enough to break the silence in the car. In those moments Chandler almost yearns for the gentle murmur of the thinning pub crowd—although if he thinks about it (which he will, he always will) he has to wonder whether or not the inclusion of Kent’s voice makes the noise more palatable.

It all comes back to Chandler as he muses on Kent’s voice, his presence. His proposal—it was one, wasn’t it? Or was that just his own mind getting ahead of itself?—his veiled question to which Chandler only has half an answer. He, of course, is interested. This is what he wants, isn’t it, what has occupied a certain percentage of his thoughts since well before that first questioning contact. Chandler isn’t even particularly averse to sex as a concept, or an action; he’s inexperienced, of course, but surely they’ve all guessed that now, not just Kent. He’s just not that interested in sex with anyone who’s there. He hadn’t thought much about sex with men beyond the fact that it happens until he met Kent, although he hadn’t thought about it in a strictly female sense either, so perhaps it’s always come down to people for him, to relationships.

Not that he’s managed very many of those, either. Chandler tightens his grip around the wheel until his knuckles turn white. What must Kent see in him? He’s not sure, there isn’t much to find but he supposes he’ll let Kent look, if he wants. He can usually find something when he puts his mind to it.

Chandler jumps as there’s a sharp tap against the passenger door window. He turns, still wide-eyed and trying to control the rapid pounding of his heart, to see Kent peering back at him through the glass. His hair’s slightly damp, and he’s shoved both hands back in his coat pockets as he leans across from the side of the pavement. He looks—well, Chandler’s first thought is that he looks _good_ , but it occurs to him a second later that he looks a little pleased. It’s an attractive look on him; Chandler can’t believe he might be able to conjure that on Kent’s face.

‘Hello,’ Kent mouths through the window, his previously muffled smile growing as they watch one another. ‘You coming in or not?’

He knows he doesn’t need to nod, or reply at all, really. He’s there, isn’t he? But still, as he pockets his keys and climbs out, Chandler appreciates the option of an exit, the offering of a hidden _are you sure?_ that only he would find.

And he is sure, then, as they walk side-by-side in the infernal drizzle, and they fall into step without even trying.

*

Kent’s flat is much like Chandler’s expected. It’s a floor in an older house—he can’t place the era, he’d have to ask Ed if he wanted to know—and it’s miles away from the sharp lines and modernism of Chandler’s building. He can even see the tops of trees from the window in the sitting room, leafy creatures that would only be shadows in the distance from his own vantage point. The place suits Kent, though. Chandler’s irrationally proud that he can pick out Kent’s touches in the communal areas; maybe this isn’t as dramatic a development as he’d first thought.

Kent shrugs off his coat and jacket, draping them over the back of one of the kitchen chairs as he reaches for some of the clutter Chandler’s barely noticed. ‘Sorry—’

Chandler starts and almost reaches out a hand to clasp at Kent’s outstretched arm. ‘You don’t have to—’

‘No, I should.’ Kent shoots him a self-concious smile. ‘It’s a bit of a habit really, and Sarala’s been away a few days now so Fred and Ol are slipping. You wouldn’t know it, but they are house-trained.’

There’s an affection in Kent’s voice that Chandler half understands, a gentle berating that doesn’t quite bite as much as it should. It’s almost familiar, and the tidying is soothing somehow—maybe even for the both of them. 

‘Where’s she at the moment, then?’ Chandler asks, one palm running along the back of the closest chair. He assumes Sarala’s the nurse; Kent’s never said outright but it would make sense.

‘Her brother’s wedding. Bit of a last minute thing, apparently, but it’s an excuse for her to go back up north,’ Kent says as he begins replacing mugs in the cupboards beside his head.

Chandler smiles but doesn’t reply. He doesn’t want to pry, not really, not yet, and as he watches the echo of flex and tension in Kent’s back, he’s considering something else entirely. Something that still scares him but it draws in him somehow, makes him wonder. And wondering’s always been the bane of his existence, hasn’t it?

‘Kent—’ Chandler starts, voice as brisk as he can make it. ‘Look, when you kissed me—’ 

Kent stills, goes incredibly, _incredibly_ still, until he shuts the cabinet with a soft clunk and turns to meet Chandler’s gaze. His face is open, much as it always is, but Chandler can see he’s thinking, trying to see exactly where they might be going.

Chandler doesn’t draw it out. ‘I should have said I can’t.’

There’s a considered pause before Kent says, ‘But you didn’t.’

‘No, I didn’t.’ Chandler swallows heavily. He can’t ignore that. He doesn’t particularly want to—but they have to be careful.

Kent watches him deliberately as he takes a step closer, then another, angling to move around the table that sits between them. ‘Why?’ 

‘Because even though there are plenty of reasons why I shouldn’t, I wanted to.’

A smile breaks through onto Kent’s face, pleased and knowing. (Chandler quite likes it.) ‘I have enough reasons, myself.’

‘To not to?’

‘Mmhm.’ Kent takes another step closer. ‘But look at us now.’

It should feel threatening, this slow invasion. It always has before. But Chandler’s just intrigued, hyperaware; he can feel the goosebumps raise on the back of his neck in a gentle shiver as Kent looks at him, eyes careful but hopeful. 

Chandler _likes_ that look. 

He swallows, sighs, gets lost inbetween. ‘You’re prepared then?’

‘No.’

‘No?’

Kent walks closer, smiling even wider as his gaze finds all sites of Chandler’s fidgeting. For the first time Chandler wants Kent to reach out and touch him; they were close, so close now that he could but neither of them do. He doesn’t quite know why. 

‘No,’ He says, low and private. ‘Are you?’

Chandler only just manages to shake his head. ‘No.’ 

‘Let’s do it anyway.’ Kent comes to a stop well within Chandler’s personal space, and raises a hand to rest against his neck. ‘Because we want to.’ He steps closer, his grip still light and words even quieter. ‘And because around half of all our reasons are probably irrelevant.’

The touch is so light and careful it almost isn't there at all. It drives Chandler mad.

His throat clicks around a swallow, then another, and the decision is made.

Chandler closes the distance that Kent’s left him and finds himself pleased that Kent’s hand immediately shifts to a firm pressure on the back of his skull as they kiss, a small reassurance that he never thought he’d get. He still can’t believe Kent wants this, wants _him_ , wants it despite everything that’s already gone wrong. Chandler reaches for Kent’s side, his hand half-hesitant even as Kent tilts his head to coax him closer.

Each kiss works Chandler a little loser, softer. A slow suckle to his lower lip, an insistent nip at the corner. Kent's tongue soft and quick, darting in and out, chasing the strangled, half-muffled sounds Chandler makes. Kent strokes his palms across the spread of Chandler’s wide shoulders, unflinching and firm, fingers slipping under the wool of his coat. On the last pass across cotton, he hooks his hands across Chandler’s musculature, pulling and pushing in short, sharp tugs until the fabric’s worked off his shoulders and Chandler’s kisses turn fumbling and enthralled, messy. 

Kent shudders when Chandler breaks away to shuck his coat down his arms; their faces bump in the attempt to stay close, and by the time he’s disentangled his hands Kent is pressing kisses to the underside of his jaw and teasing the button on his jacket. His breath hitches as Kent presses the flat of his tongue to the taut skin of Chandler’s neck, and his hands tighten on the younger man’s hips, fingers flexing as the warm mouth travels from the line of his collar to behind his ear. 

Chandler gasps as Kent deftly unbuttons his jacket and slides both arms inside, wrapping around his waist and pulling him flush against his chest. He doesn’t quite know what to do with his hands—the feeling of Kent mouthing at that bit of skin just behind his ear was enough to short-circuit his mind—so he keeps them on Kent’s hips, fingers brushing against the muscles low on Kent’s stomach. They shift slightly, and a low moan escapes Chandler’s chest as he realises just how hard Kent is. 

‘Kent,’ he murmurs, voice thicker than normal, but he doesn’t know whether it’s a warning or an exclamation or an endearment.

The younger man tightens his group around Chandler’s waist and smiles against the shell of his ear. ‘Just knowing I can,’ he says, not nearly as breathless as Chandler feels. ‘Just knowing you want to.’ 

Chandler can’t stop the sound from coming out then, with Kent’s breath in his ear and his hands resting low on his back. He tilts his head against where Kent rests his mouth and kisses him, kisses him with a fervour that he hadn’t been sure he could conjure until that moment. Kent’s hands slide across his waistcoat until they can cup the sides of his face, and slip down over his neck—warm hands and fingers trailing through the cool, damp evidence of Kent’s affection—until they’re tugging at the shoulders of Chandler’s suit jacket. He gladly obliges, shrugging the fabric off and letting it fall onto the red silk lining that already occupies the back of the sofa.

Kent is halfway through the buttons on the waistcoat when Chandler leans forward and presses his mouth to an exposed patch of skin on Kent’s neck, his lips half brushing the stiff edge of his collar. Kent groans, guttural, and leans his forehead against Chandler’s shoulder as their fingers bump, trying to finish with the line of waistcoat buttons altogether. Chandler has an easier job of it, as he untucks Kent’s shirt with one hand and pulls off the younger man’s tie without having to look; Kent makes frustrated sounds against Chandler’s mouth until each piece is discarded against the backs of whatever pieces of furniture are closest. Chandler pulls away from Kent and proceeds to trail his mouth along the line of his jaw, finally pressing a kiss to behind Kent’s ear for which he earns a satisfying shudder.

‘Which is yours?’ he says, voice a low whisper even though it needn’t be.

‘Thi—third door on the right—’

Chandler’s not even sure why he asks, because there’s no way he can comprehend the difference between right and left while Kent’s hands are undoing his tie. Kent takes over for him, removing the offending silk and placing it somewhere on the back of the sofa before pressing his hands into the muscle of Chandler’s stomach, pushing him backwards towards the hall. Somewhere in the stumbling Kent manages to unbutton Chandler’s shirt, and his hands slide across skin as Chandler’s pushed against a doorframe. One of them chuckles—probably Chandler, God knows he has no idea how or why he’s made it this far—and as soon as Kent’s swept the expensive shirt from Chandler’s broad shoulders he’s pressing their mouths together again, the one warmth between them that’s almost entirely familiar.

There’s an attractive flush on his cheeks, one that is only barely perceptible in the gentle darkness of the hallway; Chandler bends to kiss at it, swipe his tongue along the curve of unyielding bone as he slides his hands over his shoulders, ribs, stopping at the line of leather and fabric that sits at his hips. He doesn’t quite dare to ask that yet, even as he’s being backed into Kent’s bedroom with hands that are much more demanding than he’d have expected. Kent must be able to tell something about his hesitation because he recaptures his mouth with both hands on either side of his face, fingers that travel lightly across his overwarm skin until they hit the cool metal of his belt, and with a brief nudge of askance, Kent makes short work of Chandler’s trousers and then his own. Chandler would have been worried, would have been concerned about where they let the material pool in the interim, if Kent hadn’t entirely dropped the facade he wore at work and oh, _God_ , the way he looks at him. It’s somewhere between disbelief and vivication, wanton and abstemious. It awakens soft amazement on Chandler’s features.

‘Sit,’ Kent says, voice hushed, nodding over Chandler’s shoulder.

Chandler looks at him for the moment before he moves to step back and ends up propped up against the headboard, and finds that Kent’s eyes are dark and liquid; it’s a wonder he can see at all. He seems to see enough that he likes, though, as he deftly crawls atop Chandler with dampened lips and an insistent touch that Chandler’s beginning to crave. Another kiss and he doesn’t know how he’s managed for so long without them; when Kent leans over and fishes through the drawer of the bedside table, Chandler presses his mouth to the length of his left shoulder, memorizing the line of bone, the flex of muscle. For once, he doesn’t want to forget, not when Kent’s hand brushes against him, cups him through the last remaining fabric, slides a finger or two beyond the waistband and turns his eyes back to Chandler’s to ask, reddened lip interrupted by sharp white canine.

He nods, and it’s the first thing he’s been this sure about in years. 

Kent settles in Chandler’s lap, a map of skin with no boundaries. He's always liked boundaries, kept himself within them, but Chandler thinks he likes this, Kent all shifting muscles under skin, all sharp bone and soft curve. He pulls Kent further into his lap by the planes of his hips, presses his mouth to the slant of his neck, laves at the dip in his collarbone. Feels Kent swallow against his forehead. Everything is slower, every breath, every gasp and every flex of one of Kent’s hands across the back of Chandler’s neck—palm against vertebra prominens, fingers reaching for the jut of scapulae. He can’t feel the other arm, though the thought only lingers for a moment as Kent’s thigh flexes against him, as his ragged breaths tip into his ear. That’s Kent’s weight against his side, that’s Kent’s skin under his teeth, _his_ collarbone, _his_ clavicle. Kent’s hammering heartbeat against his tongue.

Chandler still can’t quite believe it.

He maneuvers so he can press his mouth to Kent’s, head pushed backwards so the angle’s right. Kent’s patient and pressing all at once, smiling against the curve of their mouths and rolling his hips against Chandler’s as one hand searches out what he dropped on the duvet earlier. A glint of foil in the low light catches Chandler’s eye and he can’t help the involuntary sharp intake of breath. It’s anticipation more than anything else, but that particular feeling always comes with a certain degree of apprehension, doesn’t it? 

Kent pauses, turns to watch him carefully.

Chandler swallows. ‘Yes,’ he starts, his hands trying to urge Kent to continue whatever movement he’d halted. ‘Please.’

The younger man’s eyes widen just a bit at that statement but Chandler doesn’t care if he sounds breathless, debauched because he is, isn’t he? He’s scrabbling at Kent’s skin as he rips the packet, hands shaking, aimlessly looking for a step he’s not taken in years.

A sudden thought occurs to him, and a broken question escapes. ‘Don’t you have to—?’

‘Shh,’ Kent murmurs, pressing a gentle dry kiss to Chandler’s concerned mouth. ‘I’ve taken care of it.’ 

‘Oh,’ Chandler says, the words smearing against the side of Kent’s face as he presses close, and delayed realisation mingles with a surge of surprised pleasure as he rolls on the condom with slick nimble fingers. ‘ _Oh._ ’

Kent might smile at that, somewhere between the short inefficient breaths and the mouthed kisses against Chandler’s skin, but neither of them are in much of a state to notice. They’re much more concerned with the movement of Kent’s fingers as he grasps the base of Chandler’s cock, with the slight adjustment of angle as he aligns himself, the way he bites his bottom lip as he sinks down, one hand on the headboard. Chandler hisses in surprise at the slow heat, the intensity of it, before his mouth must fall half-open and he makes a strangled sound he’d never expected to hear himself make.

Kent’s hand falters as he curses, moans; it slips away from the wood and grasps at Chandler’s skin, muscle, anything that would anchor him closer. There’s a desperation in Kent’s fingers that sparks some coherent though in Chandler’s mind. He raises his head and presses his nose to the flat planes of Kent’s chest, damp with exertion but Chandler doesn’t care because it’s _Kent_ , everything is Kent and he’s never realised one thought could occupy so much of his mind and not be worrisome. Chandler gasps against Kent’s sternum as he slides down further, slowly; he palms the box of Kent’s hips but holds off from doing anything other than guiding the best he can.

‘God, Joe,’ Kent breathes, his fingers kneading Chandler’s trapezius.

Chandler’s mouth smudges soft against Kent’s ribcage, a replacement for an answer that seems to satisfy Kent as his next breath comes out as an unexpected moan, smothered with some sort of self-conciousness that still hangs on, even now. But when Kent smiles that wide, crooked smile with his head tilted back, Chandler can’t help but smile back against his breastbone, and he must be able to tell because upturned lips turn into a breathy _oh_ as he shifts his hips and he’s home. He lets his head drop forwards, resting his forehead against Chandler’s for a long moment before he shifts his hips, lifts himself ever so slightly. Air bites at the edges of Chandler’s lungs; he can’t quite seem to inhale enough; another gentle shift and Kent moves with purpose, working his hips in a slow, maddening circle that very nearly drives Chandler out of his mind.

Kent keens, adjusting his grip on Chandler’s shoulder and making to kiss him with a new degree of determination. Kent misses, and Chandler gets teeth running over the bridge of his nose but for once he doesn’t care. And then _he_ ’s missing Kent’s mouth, getting chin, jaw, nose instead but he doesn’t care until Kent smiles and holds his head between his hands, holding him still. They’re kissing, properly kissing, as Kent shifts down and he shifts up and then they’re gasping names into each others’ mouths _._  

Kent sets a rhythm that suits him and Chandler soon falls in, his hands running along the line of Kent’s back, the curve of his spine as he dips his head to taste Chandler’s mouth, the underside of his thigh, once or twice the sensitive skin of the back of his knee. Kent’s breath hitches with each touch, with each roll of his hips, and once he needs his mouth to gather enough air for his lungs Chandler’s not far behind, only managing to mouth Kent’s name against the base of his jaw, the line of his neck. Kent’s blunt nails dig into the skin around Chandler’s hairline, across his shoulders as he drags himself closer.

He curls a loose fist around Kent’s erection, a tentative choice on Chandler’s part for which he is immediately rewarded with a strangled groan and his name gasped into the air somewhere around his head. The experimental flick of his thumb across the head puts a falter in their rhythm. Chandler might have thought the reaction was merely a mechanical certainty until Kent whines his name and pulls Chandler’s face to his, their mouths colliding in a clumsy kiss that would have been painful if either of them had cared.

It’s Chandler who’s pulled over the edge first, with Kent’s lower lip between his teeth and an arm curled around his waist. His tightly closed hand relaxes through his climax, his palm coming to reach across the damp expanse of Kent’s trembling lower back, encouraging and close. Kent tilts his head back and follows with a low cry that Chandler immediately wants to hear again.

And then he’s boneless and pliant, his fingers slipping from Chandler's hair to just rest against his shoulders, wrist up and fingers gently curled. Chandler nuzzles Kent’s throat, pressing hazy kisses to the tendons that strain under the effort of catching his breath. He doesn’t even think about speaking—he’s not sure he can even think in words at all—until Kent raises his head and gazes down at him, eyes soft and disbelieving even in the aftermath.

‘That was…’ Chandler doesn’t have the words.

Kent smiles through the dim light and presses a kiss to his relaxed mouth.

‘I hadn’t expected…’ 

Another kiss. Chandler thinks he could probably get used to this.

He settles for just saying ‘Kent,’ more of a sigh than an actual utterance but as they sit there, still joined, it’s the best he can manage. The man in question presses a kiss against his temple as he heaves himself away from Chandler’s tranquil body, clambering off the bed to bin the condom and returning a moment later to bundle himself into the empty space at Chandler’s side. For a moment Chandler’s tempted to laugh; Kent’s coordination’s shot, his steps wobbly but somehow when he looks up at him from where he’s collapsed against a pillow he looks like he’s got a better grip on himself than Chandler thinks he has.

Even so, he is painfully aware of the growing urge to get up from the very comfortable, very warm situation in which he finds himself in favour of climbing into a shower. He’ll have to, soon—he can’t go all night like this—but he doesn’t quite want to break it yet, not with Kent’s chin resting against his shoulder and the way his muscles feel loose and clumsy, utterly relaxed. Chandler turns his head and offers Kent an apologetic smile. The problematic side of him wins out more often than he’d like to admit. 

‘You wouldn’t mind if…?’ He starts strong but trails off, somehow embarrassed even after everything else they’ve done.

‘Of course not,’ Kent says as he raises a lazy arm in a vague gesture. ‘Last door on the left.’ He lifts his head from Chandler’s skin and thinks for a moment, brow slightly furrowed. ‘There’s an unopened toothbrush in the second drawer, if you want.’ 

Chandler’s face must do something odd then, because Kent watches him with amusement in his eyes. He knows he jumps to conclusions and thinks people are insinuating things they aren’t but, even so, Chandler hadn’t expected to have installations at Kent’s flat so quickly. Or at all, really, he’d never got that far down the line of possibility. He doesn’t know how he feels about it, if _it_ exists. Which he still doesn’t know. He doesn’t know if he wants to know. Does he? He might. He needs to stop following his thoughts down the rabbit hole.

Kent can tell, though, and a corner of his mouth quirks. ‘I bought it ages ago, on one of those two-for-one offers. Go on _._ ’

For once, Chandler follows the orders verbatim.

*

He comes back, overly aware of the flush that still hasn’t quite gone down, to find Kent already half dozing underneath the feather-down duvet. Chandler makes an effort to stay quiet as he returns the pile of clothes he’d collected from around the flat to the seat of an empty chair, but something creaks. He curses under his breath as Kent blinks into consciousness, eyes searching him out through the thin darkness. 

Chandler hadn’t expected the slow-growing smile, though, or the slight tug somewhere in his chest that makes him dread getting into his own empty bed.

Kent shifts under the sheets, twisting further onto his back. ‘Will you stay?’  

He asks in such a way, lying there with half-closed eyes and possibly the most open expression Chandler’s seen on anyone before, that he can’t help but accept. It’s probably not the brightest idea they’ve ever had, it’s risky, but so was the entire evening—and he shocks himself by _wanting_ to, by wanting to slide in next to Kent and listen to him breathe and feel the heat of Kent’s skin miraculously seep into his own.

So he does. He walks forward, discards the towel on a nearby chair, and folds himself into the mess of sheets Kent’s already made into some sort of cocooned nest; Kent shuffles towards him, slipping an arm across Chandler’s shower-warmed back, and the ensuing kisses are tinted mint.

*

Kent wakes slowly, luxuriously, and it’s the first time that’s happened in a while.

He savours the feeling, the warmth, but only realises it’s coming from another body when he stretches slightly and comes into contact with skin. It’s then when the previous night comes crashing back onto him, and the fact that it’s Chandler who he’s got an arm wrapped around scares all the air out of his lungs. It comes back all at once, almost overwhelming, as the soft rise and fall of Chandler’s bare back reveals that he’s still asleep. For a moment Kent’s frozen, hyperaware of each point of contact, but when there’s no sign that he’s disturbed the other man, he takes a chance and tucks his nose against Chandler’s shoulder. He might even tighten his grip around his torso, too, but that’s not something he’s taking responsibility for. 

He wouldn’t have picked Chandler as a stomach sleeper; something about it seems too messy for him. But there he is, sound asleep under Kent’s arm and only just managing not to smother himself with the weight of his own skull. His nose is bent a bit out of alignment as well, and sometimes an exhale ends with a soft whistle of air. Kent bites his lip as he wonders exactly how much of Chandler’s messy hair is down to the night spent in bed and how much is down to him.

The persistent sun manages to filter through an edge of the curtains, though, and impolitely reminds Kent of the fact that they’re supposed to be in the office sooner rather than later. He hums discontentedly and raises his head to press a kiss to the dip of Chandler’s bare shoulder before gingerly removing his limbs and weight from the mattress. He can’t quite bring himself to jostle Chandler into wakefulness just yet, not when he’s long suspected that the man doesn’t slip into sleep easily.

Instead he pads around the room as quietly as he can with the aging floors, pulling on a pair of pajama bottoms as he comes across them and—when the cold gets to him—digs out a clean long-sleeved tee shirt. He only gets it on properly by the time he’s halfway to the kitchen and keeping an eye out for any of their clothes that Chandler hadn’t managed to find in the dark. Kent half wants something to be there, because it all feels just a bit like a dream. There’s nothing, just like he’d expected, but Chandler was definitely still in his bed, so it must have happened.

He smiles brilliantly at the kettle, and gets no acknowledgement at all. Nevertheless, he fills the appliance with a familiarity that means he doesn’t even have to look when he replaces it on the stand and switches it on. The very least he can do is provide a cup of tea, after all. Now he just has to find a pair of mugs without chips in them.

Another set of footfalls creaks softly against the floors, and Kent frowns as he realises that it’s not the rhythm he’d have expected from Chandler. The only reason he doesn’t scowl is that he can place the sound regardless, and he can be fairly confident that Sarala isn’t a burglar. She rounds the corner moments later, a familiar sight in one of the sweatshirts she always pinches from her brothers, and the amused glint in her eye gives the game away.

‘Morning,’ she says brightly, and there’s a deliberate pause that’s only broken when she leans against the counter next to him. ‘There’s a man in your bed.’

‘Is there?’ Kent widens his eyes in mock surprise. ‘I would know.’

She grins at him, undeterred. ‘Just checking that he’d not just crawled through your window.’

‘It’s unlikely.’ 

‘Yeah, you’re right.’ Sarala makes a show of thinking the situation through. ‘Wouldn’t have had enough time to get his top off, in my theory.’

Kent laughs. He really shouldn’t, this is the complete opposite of the situation he’d expected but some involuntary part of him knows that Sarala’s a good ally to have. And she’s saved his arse far too many times before to allow much doubt in his mind that she wouldn’t be the source of any scandal. Not that she knows exactly who it is in his bed.

‘You didn’t hit him, did you?’

Kent almost spills the boiling water he’s pouring. ‘What?’

‘He’s got a bloomin’ massive bruise on his face, the poor blighter.’

Understanding floods over him and leaves Kent a little more flippant than he probably should be. ‘Yeah, well, it comes with the territory, doesn’t it?’

‘He _works_ with you?’

‘Let’s—’ Kent catches himself. ‘Let’s not go there. Weren’t you supposed to be back on the twelfth?’ 

Sarala looks at him for a moment too long, but ends up just crossing her arms with a nod to the abused calendar hanging on the wall. ‘It is the twelfth.’ 

‘Not the eleventh?’ 

Leaving the two mugs steeping, Kent turns to squint at the grid littered with four peoples’ plans and reminders. He groans as he notices his (glaring) mistake; Sarala just chuckles behind him. 

‘And you call yourself a detective.’ 

Kent shakes his head and returns to the tea. ‘Shit.’

‘Yeah, I’m starting to think you’re a shit detective too, if you’re losing track of days.’

‘Shut it!’ he counters, but the words force his mouth into a smile and before long he’s laughing along with her, although they make a decent effort to keep their amusement as subdued as possible. ‘When did you get back?’ 

She grins and bumps his shoulder with a suggestive wink. ‘Long after you were finished, if that’s what you’re worrying about.’

Kent doesn’t think it’s him that would worry; more like Chandler. They haven’t really decided exactly how they were going to go through with all this, after all. Something tells Kent that having his flatmate overhear their encounter would have put a stop to it all before it even got going. Especially since he’d promised it was just them in the flat.

‘No need to look quite so relieved, Kent,’ Sarala says with a gentle nudge to his arm. ‘It’s not the first time I’ve arrived home and there’s an extra person in here.’

Kent raises an eyebrow and twists to hold her gaze as he reaches for the milk. ‘It’s not usually me, though, is it?’

Sarala grins even wider. ‘True. But that just makes it all the more interesting.’

‘Oh, _God_.’ Kent groans, although he knows that she isn’t as serious as she could be. ‘What about—?’

‘Oliver and Freddie?’ she interrupts, shaking her head. ‘Nah, it’s far too early for them to be back yet. They’re probably passed out somewhere, and we both know how much experience they’ve had with that.’

Kent sighs and fishes through the drawer for a teaspoon. ‘You make the situation sound so rosy.' 

She shrugs, honestly unconcerned. ‘Eh, they’re together—they’re _always_ together, unless one of them finds a bird desperate enough.’ She smirks but double checks her wristwatch. Kent knows that, joking aside, neither of them would let it go if they didn’t show up soon. ‘And, in any case, a messy night out isn’t exactly police business, Constable.’

‘Yeah, yeah.’

Sarala smiles at him as he stirs the milk into the tea, the metal clinking against the sides of ceramic. ‘I’ll clear off, then, shall I?’ She waggles her eyes at his inquiring gaze. ‘I’ve just had a convenient sudden hankering for a sandwich from the place down the road. Want anything?’

Kent can tell from the look in her eye that she’s only offering out of habit. ‘No, thanks, I’ll be all right.’ 

‘Course you will,’ she says, picking out some cash from her nearby purse and folding it into her pocket. ‘You’re having breakfast in bed.’

Kent checks his watch and scoffs. ‘Not at this rate.’

Sarala laughs, pushes the hair that’s fallen free from her plait back behind one ear and grins at him on her way out. ‘Well, if you don’t want the Spanish Inquisition badgering you for the next week and a half, I’d clear him out of here before Ol gets back. You know what he’s like.’

‘Aye aye, m’am.’

Kent considers adding smarmy salute, but doesn’t get a chance.

‘Twit,’ she shoots back, laugher on the edges of her voice. 

He grins at the door as it shuts, oddly touched that Sarala makes the effort to close it gently instead of just letting it slam as they all usually do. But he can’t stand there smiling like an idiot at a closed door, so once her steps disappear down the corridor Kent turns back to the mugs and grasps one in each hand. He walks back through the flat gingerly, careful not to spill anything, and when he reenters his still-quiet bedroom—incapacitated by the two mugs—he has no choice other than shutting the door with his back. The sound is unfortunately both louder and closer than that of the front door, and Kent freezes as he wonders if he’s managed to accidentally wake Chandler. He’d have to eventually—which is more on the side of soon, now—but there’s a part of him that wants a gentle morning, one that coppers never usually get.

Chandler stirs with a snuffle—yet another noise that Kent never would have expected to come out of the man’s lungs—and turns his face to the opposite side without opening his eyes. Kent’s always thought that Chandler looks like the sort of person who would practically bounce out of bed, but judging from the sluggish movement and displeased expression that crosses his scrunched up face when the light doesn’t go away that is the entirely wrong conclusion. He’s happy to be proven wrong, though, and lays a gentle hand on the plane of Chandler’s shoulder that’s left uncovered by the sheets as he places the tea on the side table.

‘Morning,’ he murmurs, and gets a frown in return.

Kent’s soft laugh must rouse something in Chandler, as the frown deepens before he opens his eyes and fixes him with an appraising look. His easy smile must do something else, because Chandler blinks heavily, mouth slack, and scrabbles against the bed-sheets until he’s raised himself to his elbows; the duvet slips just a bit further down his back, and Kent has to force himself to not let his eyes follow. 

Chandler looks thoroughly confused, and it brings a fond smile to Kent’s mouth.

‘Hello.’

Kent can almost see the realisation, the suspension of his mouth between an ‘ _oh_ ’ and a smile. 

‘I’ve only got Darjeeling, I’m afraid,’ he continues, gesturing to the side table with the mug in his hand.

‘That’s, um—’ Chandler begins, voice sleep-rough but still achingly familiar. ‘That’s fine.’ 

Kent has to suppress an urge to walk over to him and rustle the sleep-tousled hair even more as Chandler heaves himself up, scrubbing one hand over his face and reaching for his tea with the other. He feels oddly domestic—already. It shouldn’t be this easy.

That’s dangerous, isn’t it?

To hell with it. It’s all dangerous. 

_They’re_ dangerous.

It still doesn’t answer his question.

For the first time, Kent doesn’t quite know where to go next. He stands there almost awkwardly, hiding half his face behind his oversized mug as Chandler tries to find a way to prop himself up and sip tea at the same time. Kent had had it all planned—as far as he had been willing to think, anyway. Fantasize. He hadn’t expected Chandler to stay at all to be honest. He’d asked mainly because he wanted it and his mind had still been hazy and agreeable; the bubble might have burst if Chandler had refused.

But it had to burst eventually, hadn’t it? They had to be in the office in an hour and a half, and Chandler was still leaving a dent in Kent’s usual side of the mattress. He’s got reports to write, and he definitely can’t finish them from there.

Chandler catches his eye, mouth still in the shadow of a smile. ‘What time is it, then?’

‘Half past seven, give or take,’ Kent says, frowning slightly; Chandler hadn’t even tried looking at his watch. ‘Just long enough for you to drink that and get home before Skip’ll be on your back about the next shift.’

Chandler makes a noise in the back of his throat, breathing in the faint steam rising from the mug in his hand. His eyes slide away from Kent and refocus on the corner of the side table. His expression is almost impenetrable—it’s the one he uses when he doesn’t like what’s happening—and it takes a moment before Kent can identify the emotion in the cracks around the edges. It’s when Chandler ducks his head and shuts his eyes for a moment that Kent understands.

He places his own half-drunk mug on the closest flat surface and lowers himself onto the space in the mattress he’d created earlier on, this time on top of the comforter. Chandler turns his head to watch over his shoulder, perplexed, as Kent nuzzles the slope of his shoulder, one hand trailing gently across his ribcage.

‘Not that I want you to go,’ Kent says, underlining each word with a light press of lips. ‘Much the opposite, in fact.’ 

Chandler’s expression looks as if he can’t quite understand.

Kent wraps an arm around Chandler’s middle and pulls him closer until he releases the tea and allows Kent to coax him away from the edge of the bed. By the time Kent’s mouth makes its way to the hinge of Chandler’s jaw, the man might even be smiling—just a bit.

‘Now, unfortunately,’ Kent continues as Chandler turns under his grip to face him properly. ‘We both have to go in today, and I have three flatmates, one of which understands how to use a calendar much better than I do and two others who would just love to come home to an extra person in their flat and not shut up about it for weeks.’

Chandler frowns but accepts Kent’s brief press of lips. ‘What is it about calendars that evades you?’

Kent chuckles. ‘You might want to check the date on all the paperwork I filled in yesterday before it gets sent off.’

‘So you mean—’

‘Yes, I got the date wrong and Sarala got back sometime last night. No, after _that_ —’ Kent soothes Chandler’s brief look of panic with a squeeze of his shoulder. ‘But she’s kindly stepped out for a bit and can probably find Ol and Fred if they’re staggering back as we speak and hold them up. They’re weak to sandwiches.’

Chandler just looks at him, pale eyes considering, before smiling with a degree of surprised satisfaction and lowering his head to kiss at the crook of Kent’s neck, seeking out skin. ‘So we don’t have time, then…’ 

Kent laughs as Chandler licks at his pulse point but pushes at the solid point of his shoulder. ‘Regrettably not, sir.’

Chandler lets him go, reclining back into the pillows and duvet with a smile Kent’s only seen once or twice before. He’s tempted to lean over and kiss it away, try to commit its shape to memory, but they really, _really_ don’t have time for that. 

* 

It feels like it shouldn’t feel normal, not when it had taken them three tries to shut Kent’s door between them, but it does. 

*

‘All right, Kent?’ Riley’s voice lands in his ear just as her hand connects with his shoulder. ‘Have you finished with those damage reports?’

‘Yeah, just about.’ He sorts through the small pile on the edge of his desk and pulls the file in question free. ‘Why?’

She takes it from him with a half-hearted sigh. ‘The boss wants them. No idea why, he knows the entire case backwards.’

Kent rolls his eyes in some sort of awkward commiseration, and turns back to the witness statements spread out in front of him. It isn’t the first time Chandler’s requested some oddly specific piece of information in the past few days. He’d even had Ed bring up some related historical files they’d used when the case was still open and spent the lunch hour pouring over them. Even smoked salmon sandwiches hadn’t tempted him.

It isn’t the first time any of it’s happened, though; when their cases come to court, Chandler dives into them when they aren’t otherwise occupied. The defence teams love picking holes in those giving evidence, and Chandler is well aware that he has more than the usual policeman for them to exploit. He’s the inspector who let the Ripper escape, who let the Kray impostors die in police custody, who headed up the investigation of serial murders and let the dead suspect’s mother kill an innocent woman. His personal demons aren’t brilliantly kept secrets, either. None of it’s his fault, of course, none of it, but—they can use it, so they will. He has to know his cases inside and out, put up a quiet fight under strain that Kent’s only recently begun to understand. The team know Chandler’s a good copper, a _proper_ copper, one that puts more of his heart into the cases than the rest of their DIs combined but Kent’s not sure Chandler knows it. 

Kent had started lingering later and later, watching London fade and listening to dull silence creep through the station. There’s always enough to do, always more paperwork to fill in and more double-checks that everyone appreciates (especially when they’re approaching a court date), but it’s the moment when Chandler steps out of his office that Kent anticipates. Shadow loops over shadow as he walks towards the last illuminated desk, the last pile of files still open, the last friendly face in the place. Chandler brushes his fingers over the length of Kent’s shoulder as he walks behind him, a gesture that could be misinterpreted as simply friendly, and tells him to go home. There’s a softness there that never appeared before. 

They’re the only moments that they’ve had, alone, since the call came through. 

Then Miles had made an offhand comment to the tune of ‘Kent’s been working past shift a lot of the time lately, hasn’t he?’ and Kent had been quick to accept his invitation to the pub. Chandler had declined, as he usually did. 

Kent doesn’t especially like contemplating how much of the case Chandler had got through over the past few days, so he busies himself with the classification project they were trying to get set up between cases. He doesn’t allow himself to glance back at Chandler as he gets up to retrieve some of the more recent case files they’d managed to convince Ed to make space for. He passes Miles on the landing, however, and the older officer catches his eye.

‘Anything come in?’ Miles asks as he slows to a stop.

Kent shakes his head. ‘Nope. It’s dead quiet at the moment.’ When Miles doesn’t reply immediately, the last of Kent’s willpower crumbles and he nods his head in the direction of Chandler’s office. ‘You going in, then?’ 

A gruff sigh escapes the sergeant. ‘Bloody CPS will keep us waiting, no doubt, but they still want him there an hour early.’

Kent smiles with half his mouth. ‘I’m sure you’ll manage, skip.’

Miles tries a disparaging glance but Kent can tell it’s not entirely lacking in humour. He leaves him to enter the incident room on his own and makes for Ed’s basement instead. Kent’s never managed to find the man working at his desk before, so when he raps his knuckles on the open door and receives a vague reply from one of the darkened corners, he isn't especially surprised. How easily Ed can point him in the right direction in the badly lit mess does impress him, though, and he manages to find most of the what he needs quietly and without stubbing his toe. 

Which is something, anyway.

He realises halfway up the stairs that he probably should have brought up the selection in two trips if he doesn’t want to end up on his back at the bottom, covered in carbon-copy forms with a cracked skull. He perseveres, though, and although his fingertips slip across the edges of the paper he makes it to the landing in one piece. Kent cranes his neck to see if he can guilt Mansell or Riley into helping—God knows they owe him—but it’s a wide-eyed Chandler who meets his gaze instead from where he stands, discussing something with Miles. 

Kent freezes, unsure whether or not to just continue on as normal. Of course, that’s what they’ve been endeavouring to do since they’d woken up together, but there’s a look in Chandler’s eyes that Kent can’t help but want to fix. Or lessen. Or distract—or something.

He buys time by trying to readjust his grip, and he sees Chandler excuse himself and begin the short walk towards him. Miles doesn’t even look on—just leans over to speak with Mansell—so when Kent finds himself looking up into Chandler’s light blue gaze he doesn’t mind meeting it quite as much as he might have before.

‘Do you need anything, sir?’ he asks, the standard procedure acting as a roundabout way of discussion.

Chandler’s hand twitches but he suppresses the movement. Kent watches, eyes peeled and as understanding as he can make them, and pulls the papers closer to his chest. Chandler glances back for a split second and draws a breath.

‘Come back with me tonight.’

All the words come out in one hushed breath, and Kent can see Chandler’s fingers twisting the ever-familiar tub of Tiger Balm in his pocket.

‘Yeah, all right. Of course.’ Kent tries to make the arriving smile subdued enough that it doesn’t prompt any questions. ‘Good luck, sir.’ 

Chandler’s answering smile bears more than thanks, and with half an aborted nod he turns to meet Miles halfway to the exit. Kent pauses, reigns in the smile that’s threatening to erupt at any moment, juggles the sloping files so he doesn’t drop them, and tries to muster the enthusiasm to get through what’s left of the day.

*

The only interesting thing that happens while Skip and Chandler are out of the office is that Mansell manages to elbow his mug of coffee over, and even then it’s only amusing because of his propensity for wildly creative swearing. But, excluding that, Kent avoids looking at his watch by burying himself in filing and offering to go out for sandwiches in the late afternoon lull.

Kent texts his flatmates ( _Won’t be in later_ ) during one break, hiding in the toilets to avoid Mansell’s unnervingly eagle-eyed gaze, and gets two distinct types of responses in return. Even with their innuendos and suggestive smilies he knows they don’t really think he’s staying out to get his leg over—even if that might very well be what he’s doing. They’re used to him not appearing in daylight for days at a time in the throes of an investigation. His schedule’s just getting a little bit more jumbled, with Chandler involved.

Not that it’s been remotely straightforward in the past. 

He slinks back into the office and installs himself at his desk, resigned to sitting out the rest of the afternoon. It doesn’t feel like they’re about to get a callout, but it never does, does it? They can easily be called to a crime scene, and they don’t necessarily need Miles and Chandler there to start preliminary inquiries. But, as Kent flicks through the cumbersome Metropolitan Police operating system, he feels as if he just might. He’s always been concerned about Chandler, ever since that first night and he’d seen the man gulping down air outside the cover tent. And although he can tell himself that this is the Crown Court, not a battered stairway in a council estate bearing Chandler’s blood or a standoff in the street, he still wonders. Because it’s his mind that seems to do him the most damage.

Maybe it’s that knowledge that undermines him.

The crunching of the door forces Kent into looked over his shoulder. Chandler and Miles walk through into the incident room, and although Chandler shrugs off his coat and offers them all a warm greeting he makes a beeline to his office. The door remains open, but only halfway, as he silently sorts himself out—or, at least, that’s what Kent assumes he’s doing. He’ll find out later, probably.

At first it seems as if Miles is planning on following him, but instead he comes to a halt at the end of Kent’s desk and shakes his head.

Kent clears his throat and makes a show of sorting through papers as he speaks. ‘Did it go all right?’

‘Yeah, but you know what he’s like.’ Miles shrugs, and heads for his own desk.

Kent isn’t sure he does. Not really. He’d like to think he did, though.

(Maybe he does.)

‘Yeah,’ he mutters, trying to keep his eyes on the file in front of him.

He breaks their own rules, later (cracks them, really) when he makes the tea and delivers Chandler’s himself. Kent lets his fingers slide across Chandler’s as he passes the mug, an incidental movement that softens something in Chandler’s features. It’s a promise, but of what or what for neither of them know.

* 

Both of them make their excuses for working late, again, and the rest of the team shake their heads and laugh because it’s just so typical. Has been for years, and will probably stay that way. Kent feels like it’s obvious, it must be, but Riley inquires after Millie and Skip launches into a speech typical of fathers and Mansell rolls his eyes. Then they’re gone, shrinking silhouettes in the artificial light, and he and Chandler share the remaining silence just like they have been doing for years.

The journey in Chandler’s car is quiet, but then again it always is until they get far enough away from the station. Even with the rumble of the engine and the constant low noise that reminds them they’re in London, it feels like someone with keen hearing just might overhear them. It’s irrational, of course, but they’re both well-versed in irrationality. Kent turns his gaze out the car window, towards the pedestrians holding umbrellas aloft and shop lights splayed out through the drizzle. The rain wasn’t hard enough to warrant the palaver of an umbrella for the short walk through the car park, and some raindrops still cling to Chandler’s coat shoulders. Kent can’t help but let his eyes find the reddened shadow under the elastic on Chandler’s wrist, either.

Chandler changes gear with a deft swiftness that Kent had never been able to master as the light before them glides from red to amber to green, and Kent opens his mouth to speak.

‘It went well, then?’

‘As well as expected.’ Chandler turns his head as he switches lanes, the clicking of the indicator echoing in their ears. He sighs as his gaze returns to the road ahead. ‘They got the last ounce of weight out of their argument.’

The implication’s heavy, the slight rasp to the edge of Chandler’s voice betraying what he’s trying to keep hidden, and Kent has to suppress an urge to rest an understanding hand on Chandler’s thigh. He wraps his hands around themselves instead, one thumb and forefinger pressing into his knuckles.

‘It was a clear cut case, though, in the end.’

Chandler smiles, and it’s almost reassuring. ‘The end result’s not what we’re arguing about. It’s how we get there.’

Kent scoffs. It’s always the way. ‘Pedants.’

This time Chandler’s mouth quirks into something more akin to genuine amusement. ‘Precisely.’

Kent grins back, their faces dappled in the traveling interplay of shadow and light. Chandler turns to face him properly as they stop at the next intersection.

‘What did you end up doing with those files?’

‘Digitization,’ Kent replies, shrugging with one shoulder. ‘I think Ed gets too distracted to make a decent start on it—for the recent cases, anyway. He was lost somewhere in Venezuelan crime in the nineteenth century, last time I looked.’ 

Chandler huffs out a surprised laugh as they rejoin moving traffic.

* 

This time when Kent steps through the door into the expensive flat, Chandler holds a hand out for his coat.

He hands it to him without question, and lines up his shoes with Chandler’s without urging before following the inspector further into his flat, all the sharp corners and crisp lines familiar in the back of Kent’s brain. He glances around properly this time, more relaxed than he had been when he’d first seen the place, and after a moment he decides it suits Chandler. It would, of course, it’s his flat, but Kent had missed the details in his initial anxiety. After all, how could someone who arrived at crime scenes in Savile Row suits not have personal preference for the rest of their living arrangements? Kent’s gaze lingers on a neat bookshelf in the corner of the room; he wonders. Exactly what he wonders isn’t clear, even to him, but for a brief moment he just wants to pour over the spines, see what Chandler spends his time on when he’s not on duty. Whenever that is.

‘Sorry, I don’t think I’ve got any milk for tea,’ Chandler says, pulling Kent’s attention to him with an apologetic glance.

‘It’s fine,’ Kent replies, suddenly quite glad for his flatmates; even if they are infuriating, at least they can pick up milk when he gets drawn into his work. ‘I think I’ve had my fill for today, anyway.’ 

‘It might be time to invest in a second kettle for the station, by the looks of the one that’s there.’ Chandler pads around the kitchen, flicking each light on one by one. ‘It’s been through the wars.’

‘A backup would be appreciated when that one packs it in. Its timely demise is imminent, I think.’ Kent shoots Chandler an overdone warning look. ‘Though, you might not want to mention to Skip that all the digestives are gone.’

Chandler turns to him, half flabbergasted. ‘There were two new packs last time I looked!’

‘You know as well as I do what coppers do when faced with paperwork: hide behind a wall of biscuits,’ Kent says, laughing, although he doesn’t mention that he’s pretty sure Chandler hadn’t taken a quarter of an hour out of the past three days to make himself a cup of tea. 

‘As nice as it’d be, I don’t think the Met’s budget cuts avoided electrical appliances,’ Chandler says with a smile and a gentle squeeze of Kent’s shoulder as he walks past him. ‘No matter how much the officers claim tea’s more important than petrol.’

Kent smirks and mutters, ‘The bastards.’

Chandler’s quiet laugher brings a warmth to the base of Kent’s spine as he listens to the man walk around the sitting room, each light switch a gentle click in the otherwise quiet flat. They settle into a comfortable silence, as they often have before, and as time stretches Kent begins to wonder why exactly Chandler asked him back. He remembers what happened last time he’d done that very clearly—very, _very_ clearly—and although Kent knows that Chandler hasn’t exactly had an easy few days, he can’t help but accept the small shiver of hopeful anticipation that slides along his back. 

He knows Chandler’s still somewhere behind him, walking towards him from the sound of his footfalls, but it’s only when he edge of his jacket brushes his back that he realises exactly how close. Kent swallows heavily, biting his lip against questioning words; give him a chance, let him consider what he needs—wants. If he knows. (He might not. Kent doesn’t, not always.)

Chandler breathes out a short breath through his nose, Kent takes a deep breath in, and the next thing that Kent feels is the warm press of Chandler’s open-mouthed kiss against the nape of his neck. The contact sends pleasure skidding down Kent's spine, and although it’s nothing like what he’d have expected to happen he arches back into Chandler’s chest, his sternum pressing against his spine, and lazily tilts his head to one side. Chandler makes a gentle noise that resounds in his chest, laying kisses along the side of Kent’s throat. When his hand rests against the taut muscles of Kent’s stomach, a pressure that pulls him closer, Kent’s heart stutters and starts to pound.

Twisting against Chandler until they’re chest to chest, Kent slips an arm under that taller man’s suit jacket and pulls him closer, presses his mouth to the faint yellow of Chandler’s jaw, the sliver of pink new skin across the bridge of his nose, all exhale and never enough inhale. It’s slow and soft, a bit different, though Kent enjoys the small hitches in Chandler’s breathing, the slight scrabble at Kent’s lower back when he feels the gentle press of tongue.

‘Kent—’ he breathes, voice half-broken, ‘I—’

Kent raises his head, brushing the bridge of his nose against Chandler’s jaw; Chandler lets their lips catch, and Kent’s are soft and warm and obliging. It isn’t long, though, before each touch that was hovering and hesitant turns harder, demanding, and Chandler deepens the kiss to something dark and breathless. Kent hides a soft moan in a clearing of his throat and drags him closer, hands flattered against Chandler’s back. 

Somehow they maneuver into the bedroom—exactly how is lost on Kent, when he’s more concerned with Chandler’s mouth and hands and warmth—and there’s a trail of clothing dropped behind them, haphazard and entirely out of place with the usual orderly cleanliness. Chandler presses Kent back onto the mattress, sheets still made from that morning, and as skin slips against skin they can’t kiss for the gasps that escape. Recovery doesn’t come, just even more jolts of feeling with each movement against each other, and Kent can’t think for the shivery pleasure of Chandler's mouth against his skin, his bones, the weight of Chandler’s skeleton against his own. He drags both hands down the skin of Chandler’s back, smiling against his insistent mouth as no layer of fabric stops him from tracing every bone, every muscle, every ridge, every dip, until he returns to the curve of Chandler’s skull and pulls him close, seeking the familiarity of his mouth, the unfamiliarity the strangled, exquisite sounds coming from his throat.

Kent slides a shaking hand between their heaving chests, feeling muscle jump as he trails past skin, and stretches his fingers to wrap around the both of them. Chandler’s breath shakes when he moves, the twist of wrist and the twitch of hips, and Kent wrings a moan out of them both before they crash together again, rough and all teeth but somehow smiling just a little bit. And it just turns into a bit of a blur, with Chandler breathing hard against his neck, Kent’s free hand digging into the flexed muscle of his partner’s shoulder, clumsy fingers tangling with his own, a familiar ache coiling low in stomach, a sudden thud as one of their shoulders knocks the bedside table, a muttered curse that turns wanting at the end, a searing kiss that pushes Kent’s head back into Chandler’s pillow. It’s all too soon when Kent gives in to it, when Chandler rubs in close, when one of them makes a low sound, when Kent curls one leg around him and it’s one moment away from over.

‘Oh, God—’ Chandler smears the words against the crook of Kent’s neck, hoarse and low, and with another push and pull he’s biting at the skin as he comes with a shudder.

Kent isn’t far behind, surprised by the sting and the sudden warmth across his stomach; he tightens his grip around Chandler’s sagging shoulders as he follows. His hold slackens, slowly, and between trying to catch his breath and remember where he is the echo of a smile plays on his lips. Chandler slumps away from him, and Kent’s glad for his choice to collapse at his side instead of knocking all the air out of him for a second time. He turns to look at him, eyes soft, and they’re still too breathless to kiss but they try it anyway.

Chandler watches him with unfocused eyes when they pull apart. His lower lip is swollen, bitten red. There’s something absent about his face that just might suggest to Kent that this was a release of more than one kind, a distraction. But he can’t come anywhere close to blaming him for it, and from the way Chandler’s arm lies heavily across the base of his ribs Kent doesn’t think he’s incidental. He smiles and presses a dry kiss to Chandler’s forehead. If this is what Joseph Chandler needs, then he’s happy to provide it when necessary. If it means he gets to lie there with the fingers of one hand loosely running through Chandler’s dampened hair and one ear listening to the rabbit-mumble of his heart, then it’s absolutely fine.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 16 December 2013.
> 
> Again, at the risk of repeating myself: thank you so, so, so much for all the comments and kudos. The feedback's been lovely, I'm so pleased you've all been enjoying reading this as much I have writing and posting it, and I hope you continue to enjoy the next seven chapters! :)


	5. Chapter 5

Even twelve floors up, London isn’t quiet.

Chandler reckons it’s the windows—the expanse of glass can’t be much of a protectant as brick and plaster. He’s probably got more window than wall in the living room, and even through the thick blackout curtains the faint, ever-present lights seep through the corners that never quite reach far enough, the distant sounds trickling through nonexistent cracks. Chandler hears each one, clear through the stillness; counts the sirens, picks out each squad car, each ambulance, each rush of traffic.

It sounds the same as it always does.

He wishes he doesn’t know that, wishes it wasn’t quite so familiar to him even with Kent in his bed one room over. But even now, when they’re sitting in the middle of an (admittedly suspicious) quiet patch and have the luxury of leisurely nights in, he still can’t find the ability to sleep though the night. Instead of staying put with Kent curling around him, limbs slack and loose with trust, when he’d awoken with a start from an almost-doze he’d crept out of the bedroom in search of… well, he doesn’t know what. Something. Tea hadn’t been the answer. 

(How un-English of him.)

Chandler scrubs a hand over his face, getting to his feet from where he’d perched on the edge of the sofa, eyes adjusted to the dark but still not looking at anything in particular. There isn’t much else for him to do; he’s too inexplicably unsettled to sit down and read anything, too aware of Kent’s presence to try anything that might produce sound. He settles on clearing up, like he always does, rinsing out the mug and straightening the pile of post and papers he’d arranged when it was still light, on his way back through to the bedroom. He’d have to go back eventually. Maybe counting sheep will help.

(Last time he’d tried, he made it to ninety-three before giving up and going to the station at barely five in the morning.) 

Chandler nudges the door open just far enough for him to fit through,  and shuts it as carefully as he possibly can once he’s inside. The darkness is a familiar friend that allows him to keep his sight, so even from the edge of the room he can pick out the mess of limbs in the regimental sheets. Kent is a migratory animal; he moves onto Chandler’s side of the bed once he’s vacated it. He’s done it ever since the first night. Chandler had been surprised to find that he didn’t mind.

This time, though, there’s something disquiet about his body, something out of place that doesn’t fit the countenance Chandler’s come to find familiar in his bed. Something in himwhispers that it’s too sudden, that anyone’s face on his pillow is an anomaly in itself and can’t possibly be anywhere in the realm of familiar _yet_ , but there they are. Familiar. Chandler’s heart lurches uncomfortably as he recognizes the irregularity.

Kent has nightmares, sometimes. Not violent ones; there’s no flailing or wailing that would announce their arrival but Chandler’s felt them against his chest and standing there, back against the shut door, he places the silent twitch, the curl of Kent’s mouth, the absent flinch, the whispered whimper. And he doesn’t know what to do.

(Never has.)

(He’s never asked him to _do_ anything.) 

(But still.)

Chandler swallows around nothing. The urge to do something is ingrained in him, especially when it comes to Kent, but the thoughts won’t come. The only think that he can think of is that it’s his fault—it must be the striping, it must be, and he Kent sent out there. He asked him to track down the Krays and then, even after, he’d compounded it with accusations that he’d only really half believed. He wouldn’t have blamed Kent for hating him after that. But he doesn’t, and maybe it’s that thought that pushes him forward, pushes him to sit down on the floor with his back leaning against the bedside table next to where Kent’s lying.

(He still has no idea what he’s doing, but that’s all in a day’s work for him, isn’t it? When it comes to Kent.)

And, with a sudden intake of breath, Kent goes from clenched-jaw sleep to awake in no time at all. His eyes flash wide, an interruption in the dark, and its takes his fingers a moment or two to loosen the grip on the sheets they’d been clutching. Chandler can’t bear the slightly embarrassed look on his face, the forced relaxation before he lets himself look at Chandler’s inquiring gaze. He knows it can’t last for long. Maybe they’ll both be up all night, now.

‘You all right?’

The answer’s no, it’s plain that he’s not entirely all right, not with that look in his eyes but Kent clears his throat and stretches gently as he brings himself closer to the edge of the mattress.

His voice is sleep-scratchy but firm. ‘Yes.’

Chandler nods, accepting what he can’t change. Maybe one day.

Kent doesn’t seem to immediately try and get back to sleep. He doesn’t turn over, as he often does if he half-wakes in the night—Chandler doesn’t really know how he’s come to catalogue so many of Kent’s particularities—and instead he just lies there, eyes open and fixed on the side of Chandler’s head. It’s as if neither of them know where to go from here; they may have been sleeping together, and may be partners both in and out of work in an odd use of the word, but they’ve never tread this far before. Intimacy without the distraction of passion is different. Need without the demand is harder to pinpoint. They can’t hide in the dark like they hide in each other.

‘Do you remember when you were suspended?’ 

Chandler knows it’s probably the worst way to start saying what he’s trying to say, but it’s half three in the morning and words are difficult enough as it is. Kent nods against the pillow, mouth tightening in the way Chandler’s always irrationally hated.

‘When Miles and I were supposed to be meeting with one of the Krays, we ended up being shot at instead.’ 

‘Yeah, I know. Skip told us.’ 

Chandler nods at his feet.

‘The jacket I was wearing—it’s got a bullet hole in it now.’

It’s nothing compared to how Kent’s jacket must have been, after. Chandler hadn’t wanted to think about it then and doesn’t now.

He swallows. ‘I can’t stand it. I definitely can’t wear it again.’

Something in his voice hitches; he doesn’t know why and he does at the same time. There’s an urge to reach out and grasp the hand that’s inched out from behind the duvet, but he keeps his fingers to himself. Not yet. Not before he’s finished what he’s attempting to say, even if he has to stumble through it for the next ten minutes.

‘But, I—I can’t get rid of it. I’ve tried. I couldn’t stand the negative space, where it used to hang. And I can’t stand it being in there either, so now I hate opening my own wardrobe.’ Chandler turns to meet Kent’s perpetually wide-eyed gaze, and sighs. ‘I’m being held hostage by a _jacket_.’

Anyone who heard him might have thought that he was trying to out-do Kent’s distress, but the lopsided smile that shines through the dim light says that he’s not been misunderstood. Phrases like _you’re not alone_ and _I won’t judge you_ are too difficult to coax into existence with Kent looking at him, but Chandler’s always preferred the roundabout, long-winded story method of getting a point across. If it manages to bring a bit of a smile to both their faces, even better.

Chandler leans forward, away from the metal handle that’s been digging through his t-shirt and into the bottom of his shoulder blades, and with a twisted movement of his arm pulls the top drawer open. He doesn’t have to root around to find what he’s looking for; it’s his side, after all, and having a mess that close to his head would probably disquiet his sleep. His fingers flit to the metal and glass pot without even nudging anything else—even at that angle.

What was it? You’re never more than seven foot away from a rat in London? Well, you’re never more than seven foot away from a pot of Tiger Balm in Joseph Chandler’s flat. He’s oddly proud of that, a minor correction in a city that never seems to be completely fixed. If only he could just stop there.

With another flick of his wrist Chandler lets the glass fall gently against wood as he pushes the drawer back into place with a slow recline. Kent doesn’t miss the subdued flinch when something in there gives, and Chandler weaves his fingers together in an attempt to ignore, to forget. (It doesn’t always work.) 

Kent nudges the pot with a single finger. ‘I don’t know if it works for me because it’s supposed to, or because it reminds me of you.’

Chandler doesn’t know what to say to that, if anything.

So instead he presses his mouth to the firm-lipped smile, trying to find whatever it is it’s hiding. He doesn’t pry too intently, though, it’s not his place yet, and it’s Kent’s fingers that trace the shell of his ear as they kiss, Kent who tilts Chandler’s head back with a nudge of his nose and a gentle sigh. It’s Kent who coaxes him closer before he pulls away, eyes soft and grateful. Chandler keeps hold of his face even at the awkward angle, one of his thumbs stroking unconsciously back and forth against Kent’s cheek as the rest of his fingers splay across his jaw.

Once he starts, and all that.

* 

The incident room’s starting to get jumpy. They’ve not had anything on the board for a week and a half, and although it stands to reason that criminals must take time off too, they’ve never had that long between cases before. Chandler’s even beginning to sniff around other departments, something he only ever does when he’s desperate. But Kent’s not supposed to know that, is he? He’d managed to wheedle it out of him the night before with a well-timed question and his weight against Chandler’s chest. 

Perhaps that’s why he’s much more chipper than everyone else when it’s got to lunchtime and not even a smash-and-grab’s been called in.

‘Look at that.’ Miles’s voice barks out from behind a newspaper. ‘It’s only bloody silly season in November.’

He folds the paper with more than the necessary roughness and thrusts it towards where Kent and Riley are sat at their desks, twiddling their thumbs. Half the page is taken up with a suitably blurry photograph, the other screaming _Nessie’s Back!_ in an overwrought typeface.

Riley snorts and reaches out to pull the paper towards her. ‘Mental.’

‘You’re not kidding,’ Miles says with a smirk, and when Chandler ventures out of the confines of his office he brandishes the paper in his direction. ‘Hey, boss! Fancy a trip up to Scotland? More mystery up there than we’ve got down here.’

‘Miles,’ he scolds, although his voice isn’t harsh and he’s leaning in to take a closer look. ‘I didn’t even know they thought she’d gone.’

‘Yeah, well, where do large, scaly, reptilian cryptids go on holiday?’

‘Kavos,’ Riley answers as she nudges Kent’s shoulder with her own. ‘I’ve seen some pretty scaly ones there in my time.’ 

‘There’s enough lake monsters in the bloody Lake District,’ Miles counters, shaking out the paper and turning his attention to the sports pages. 

‘You could at least try to look busy,’ Chandler says, a slight plea in his voice but they all know he doesn’t really expect them to do anything about it. 

Riley grins. ‘I’ll get Ed to bring up his box on Scottish crypozoology, then.’

‘He’s _got_ one of those?’

Kent can’t help but laugh. ‘You really don’t want to know what’s down there, sir.’

‘It gets pretty hairy,’ Miles grumbles, turning a page. ‘Though that might just be the file on Bigfoot.’

‘Ooh, what about Spring-heeled Jack?’ Riley adopts a faux enthusiasm that just makes Kent giggle. ‘That’s a bit closer to our patch.’

Chandler shakes his head, a smile twitching at the corner of his mouth. ‘Just—just don’t give him any ideas.’

‘He gets all the odd ones ‘imself.’

‘Miles!’

Another rustling page turn. ‘What?’

Kent watches them all from over the rim of his mug, smirk hidden behind ceramic. Chandler looks like he has half a mind to say something—God knows Kent’s seen that face more often than he’d ever thought he would, in more situations than he’d ever believe—but he doesn’t. Instead he looks at them all, an exasperated look appearing with such a comfortable familiarity that sometimes Kent thought it was his way of telling them all that he liked being their commanding officer. The mere idea makes Kent want to smile even wider, but that would be telling so he sips at his too-hot tea and tries to strike the impulse down.

‘Right,’ Chandler says, ignoring Miles’s nonchalant rustling. ‘I was just going to see DCI Jenkins in case there’s anything they want to get off their hands. I’m sure they wouldn’t mind us taking over a cold case or two.’

‘I wouldn’t be too sure, sir,’ Riley says as she gets up and returns to her seat. Kent makes to do the same; perching on the edge of a desk isn’t comfortable long-term.

‘It’s worth a try.’

Chandler huffs, indignant, and Kent has to look away. It’s too much like another expression of his.

(He manages most of the time, separating personas, but there are certain moments where Chandler doesn’t and there’s no cutoff unless Kent puts one there.)

‘Of course it is, boss,’ Miles says, still sarcastic but more out of boredom than anything else. ‘You can’t have us sitting here for much longer. Our unused brains might just dribble out our ears.’

Chandler rolls his eyes but lets the comment go as he turns on his heel and heads towards the doors that lead outwards. He almost reaches out to grasp the handle before someone else has pushed it inwards, narrowly missing Chandler’s nose, and Mansell ignores his boss’s appalled expression as he enters with a coffee in one hand and some sort of pound cake in the other. Kent’s tempted to say he looks so much like a cliché but Chandler’s face distracts him. Its shock and its slow recovery; the bruises and cuts from the Stoker case have faded to nothing but Kent can still find some evidence when he looks without his eyes, presses his mouth to the crest of Chandler’s cheekbone, the bridge of his nose.

But he’s not supposed to know that, either, is he?

‘All right, Skip?’ Mansell asks, bright, as he plonks his food down on his desk and squints at the back of Miles’s paper. ‘Anything new?’

‘Don’t rub it in.’

Kent scoffs; when hasn’t Mansell taken the chance to do exactly that? He turns away from the rest of the group and grabs at the top of the pile of expense reports. To any casual observer it might seem as if he’s just getting stuck in, knuckling down because he might as well, but he watches Chandler’s careful exit out of the corner of his eye. Just because he can, and generally always has. It’s an odd familiarity, theirs.

‘How’s the paperwork treating you, then, Em?’ Mansell asks, his grin feral and irritating. ‘You’ve not put down that filing since this morning.’

‘Don’t call me Em.’ Kent doesn’t turn to look at him; not yet, anyway. ‘And maybe I wouldn’t have to do it all myself if you’d do your fair share.’ 

‘All right, all right.’ Mansell raises his hands in mock (and, for him, slightly sarcastic) surrender as Kent finally decides to fix him with a calculated look. ‘I’ll get round to it.’

Miles grunts. ‘I’ll eat my hat if that ever happens.’

‘You’ve not even got a hat!’ Riley says with a laugh that earns her a rare grin.

Mansell ignores them save for a half smile he slings over his shoulder before turning back to Kent. ‘How about we go out tonight, eh? You look like you need something to look forward to.’

Kent thinks that he already has something to look forward to, thank you very much, but when the offer sinks in he lowers the file he’s been reading from and frowns. ‘Not so fast. The last time I went out with you, you tried to get us into all the student events.’ 

(He can’t remember a more embarassing night out in his life. Except for maybe that one he can’t remember, but at least he—you know— _can’t remember_ that one.)

Mansell has the sense to look mildly sheepish. ‘Not one of my most cunning plans, I’ll admit.’ Still, he shrugs one shoulder and his face reverts back to its typical cheeky chappy before long. ‘Wrong time of year now, though.’

Kent rolls his eyes. _Really_ , what is he like?

Riley’s incredulous expression suggests she’s had the same idea. ‘Did it ever work?’

‘No, but it was worth a go.’

‘Speak for yourself,’ Kent mutters, turning back to the vague sanity of the stack of paperwork he’s challenged himself to get through today.

Mansell’s not deterred, and he leans on Kent’s desk as if it’s his own. ‘So, will you come or not?’

‘You’ve not convinced me yet,’ Kent replies, although his resolve is undoubtedly softening. They don’t always have the time to go out, anyway. He’s only just started to remember that most people would give their left arm for a week as quiet as theirs.

‘Ring up those two flatmates of yours.’ Mansell pauses and turns to Miles for a moment—as if Skip’s got better memory for Kent’s flatmates than he has. ‘Freddie and… Oliver, wasn’t it? They were a laugh last time. Make it a lad’s night out.’

Riley laughs somewhere just out of sight, hidden by Mansell’s shoulder. ‘You’re a terror.’

‘Of course I am.’ 

For a moment Kent supposes that he’ll have to go, won’t he? For the sake of underlining normality. Not that he usually goes out with Mansell. In fact he avoids it as much as he possibly can, he’s only ever in the mood for it occasionally but sitting there looking at the pile of manila at one end of his desk and the mounting number of email notifications at the other (why is there _always_ an audit around the corner?) he finds he might just want to. Perhaps he could do with a little bassline, as long as it doesn’t end up echoing around in his head tomorrow morning.

After all, he’s got Chandler on any night he wants. 

Isn’t that a thought?

‘All right,’ he says, eliciting an honest grin out of his friend. ‘But if anything comes in, I’m out.' 

*

Nothing’s called in all shift, and Chandler can’t pry anything out of Jenkins’s cast-iron grip.

Both Kent and Mansell come in bleary-eyed the next day.

Chandler just smirks at him during the empty morning briefing, and brings them both perfectly-brewed cups of tea.

*

Unsurprisingly enough, night looks the same from Kent’s sitting room window.

So much so, in fact, that Chandler’s given up on looking at it at all and turned his attention to the steaming mug of tea in front of him instead, the ceramic sat inconsequentially between the two hands he’s braced against the counter. He’s really starting to get quite sick of this. They’ve not even got a case on, for God’s sake. Why can’t he manage to spend more than three hours asleep at a time? He can tell that Kent knows. He’s not said anything, neither of them have, but they’ve both noticed. Maybe Kent’s just trying to figure out how to phrase the question. In that case Chandler wishes him luck; he’d have no idea how to do it, either. Maybe they just shouldn’t talk about it.

Maybe he should just go back to bed.

Chandler starts as the lock clicks in the front door behind him; he should have known, shouldn’t he? There’s no loitering that doesn’t go unnoticed in a shared flat. Allegedly. As if he would know—this is his first ever education in the subject, after all. Panic freezes him to where he stands; the only thought that makes any sort of sense is that even if he manages to slip back into the sanity (or is it insanity?) of Kent’s bedroom the hot tea’s still going to be there and anyone with half a brain would be able to put two and two together. Not that they’d be able to pull his name into the situation, not really, but the idea still roots him to the spot. Fight or flight deconstructed; he’s been in a bit of a fight mood for ages, hasn’t he? Missing even the monotony of the typical Whitechapel friday night bust-ups.

He hopes this won’t turn into one of those. (Though he can’t see why it would.)

 The door opens and reveals a young woman—Sarala, the name jumps out at him from some cobwebbed section of his brain—shoving her keys back into a pocket in her bag, pushing the door shut with the heel of her foot. Only when she’s reached behind her with the other hand and flicked the latch through touch alone does she look up and meet Chandler’s wide-eyed, panicked gaze.

‘No, you’re all right with me,’ she says, voice hushed but entirely audible through the thick silence. Her smile lightens it somehow, although the flush of panic is still lining Chandler’s veins. ‘It’s Oliver you’ve got to watch out for. One ill-timed slip of the tongue and all of the East End’ll know about you two.’ She walks towards him, laughing softly as she places her handbag on the counter. ‘Though I’m not entirely sure why he thinks they’re interested, to be honest. You’re not the oddest couple I know.’

Chandler almost smiles at that. They’re quite alike, her and Kent, aren’t they? Just a bit.

But he must still look like a deer struck by headlights because she cocks her head for moment and contemplates. 

‘Oh, sorry. Right, we haven’t met, have we?’ She grins at him, as if this situation is as normal as they come ‘May as well have, you’ve been here enough. I’m Sarala. Banik, if you’re the type to fancy surnames.’ 

Chandler takes the hand she extends for a handshake. ‘Am I?' 

‘You look it.’

It’s easy to believe her. ‘And I am a policeman.’

‘You lot do love a full name.’

‘We have good reason to.’

‘Of course you do.’ The smile’s still there, it keeps Chandler from worrying too much, but it’s overlaid with a creeping realisation that he waits for with peaked curiosity. She speaks again with a new tone of disbelief, though from the way her eyes flick towards the hall tells Chandler that it’s more about Kent than him. ‘You’re the one that made them all smarten up, aren’t you?’

He nods; what else can he do? ‘DI Chandler, yes.’

It’s impossible to tell if the reaction’s unconscious or not, but her mouth forms a silent ‘ _oh_ ’ and her eyes widen as the information sinks in. Chandler knows what it looks like; it occasionally worries him, what it _looks_ like. Sleeping with the boss. Shagging above rank. But if that’s what they’re doing—if that’s the honest extent of it—then why is he still there, standing in Kent’s kitchen? He could have cleared off hours ago, after. But he’d stayed. He wanted to stay. He wants to stay even now as he tries to mold his face into an expression that might just convince Sarala that her understandable fears are unfounded. (At least, he thinks they are. Hopes they are.)

She seems to give him the benefit of the doubt, and turns back to the kettle. ‘I don’t blame you. Kent’s nice enough on the eyes in hoodies and band t-shirts, but in a suit? Phwoar.’ She pauses, looks him up and down. ‘I bet you don’t scrub up too badly yourself, either.’ 

Chandler balks at her suggestion. ‘That’s not why—’

‘No, of course it wasn’t!’ She motions vaguely to her own uniform, the one Chandler’s seen a hundred and one times out of the corner of his eye in hospital corridors. ‘It’s basic professionalism, like doctors and their white coats.’

He heaves a sigh of relief, or something akin to that at least. ‘Yes.’ 

‘Still,’ Sarala continues as she turns away from him to search through the cupboards. ‘I’ve never met a man who doesn’t suit a suit, if you’ll excuse the pun.’

Chandler reckons he probably will, even if he gets more than his daily quota of puns from Miles before ten in the morning. So he does, and squeezes out a reluctant smile as she busies herself with the familiar routine of the kettle. He steps out of the way, half considering just leaving her be, but ends up leaning against a corner cabinet hiding behind a thin layer of ceramic. The conversation doesn’t feel finished, not when he can still feel momentary glances hitting the side of his head. He’s not sure if he wants her to ask—but, of course, she does.

(They really are alike, after all.)

‘Everything all right?’

‘Pardon?’ Chandler starts, half lost in his own head and the dark. ‘Oh, yes. Yes, everything’s fine.’

Sarala shoots him a wry smile. ‘Just can’t sleep?’

Chandler allows himself a telling sigh. ‘Apparently.’

She splits her attention between the darkening liquid in her mug and Chandler; the fact she doesn’t immediately say anything disquiets him a bit but he doesn’t press. Instead he watches the stillness around them through the dim light, vaguely aware of Sarala’s gentle movement but focusing his vision on the darker outline of the sofa in the next room. His attention’s pulled back to the foreground by a light touch on the back of his arm. Chandler looks towards his own skin before he find’s Sarala’s kind expression. 

‘Kent’s a heavy sleeper, you know.’ 

Chandler reckons he would, now, but even as she says it he realises he’s unsure. But she seems to be, with her movements only slightly dulled by the knowledge that her flatmate is asleep two rooms away. She’s barely compensating for the fact that it’s the middle of the night and Kent’s words suddenly come back to him. _There’s lots of coming and going round ours, as you might expect._ And any night they’ve spent together that hasn’t been interrupted by disquiet dreams has been solid on Kent’s end: Chandler can move, get up even, twist and turn and Kent just moulds himself to whatever happens, never quite waking.

Sarala watches him think, a smile playing on the corners of her mouth. ‘He won’t wake up if you put a light on. I find that half an hour of reading does more for sleepless nights than pills.’ 

The idea isn’t a bad one. It’s slightly appealing, even. He’s not sure if it’s the prospect of having a legitimate reason to poke around the books on the spare bedside table or having Kent unconsciously burrow into his side, but it sounds like something he’d like to try. He’d have to, wouldn’t he, if he wants to get any sort of decent sleep before the next shift. Which he probably should do, since he prefers to be awake for the hours he’s at work. Chandler’s mind returns to the moment and finds Sarala watching him with a full-blown grin. He could learn to keep his thoughts off his face in the future. Maybe he’ll work with _that_ on these late nights.

‘Go on then,’ she says, gently blowing the surface of her drink. ‘I know you’re not here to keep me company.’

Chandler can’t quite place the feeling in his chest—gratitude? Relief? Something. It all ends up as low-level confusion in the end, but in that moment when he switches his mug from one hand to the other and turns to leave the kitchen to her, he feels calmer. More confident, more intrigued and glad of the fact that she seems to think he’s acceptable. Perhaps for once he can think a similar thought, too.

‘Oh, and by the way,’ she calls after him, voice carefully low but striking in its own way. ‘I don’t think Kent would be best pleased to wake up alone when he didn’t fall asleep that way. Do you?’

Chandler doesn’t think he’s been threatened quite so succinctly before. 

It’s certainly the first time it scares him. 

*

Her bright blue eyes, sightless, gaze at them all from around Chandler’s shoulder.

‘Lisa Sinclair.’

He speaks to her at first, fingers still pressing the edges of the morgue pictures into the whiteboard, before turning to face his team.

‘Twenty-one years of age, politics student at the LSE. She was found strangled outside a nightclub called Capital around nine o’clock this morning. We’ve managed to preliminarily identify her through personal items found with the body—’

Chandler swallows and raps a knuckle against the second picture, concrete and creeping weeds and a cracked phone.

‘—primarily the driver’s license in her coat pocket. An official identification will have to happen quickly. Speak to her family, friends, trace her movements. If this is Lisa Sinclair, then keep in mind that it’s likely that she would have been out with a group of friends from university. We will need to speak to them as well as soon as possible. Without them it will be much more difficult to reveal the events leading up to the attack last night.’

He pauses; no one speaks. They’re too busy listening.

‘Here’s what we know: she was strangled manually in the early hours of the morning in the staff room of this club, Capital.’ Chandler jabs a finger at the close-range map. ‘No one discovered the body until this morning, clean-up staff and the like. There are no indications that her body was moved, so it is likely that her killer left as soon as the deed was done. Unfortunately, the area in question is out of range of all the nearest CCTV cameras. Forensics are being as obtuse as usual, so keep pestering them. We’re stuck with old school policing at the moment. Riley, get a start on the CCTV we do have, starting with the establishment itself. See if there’s anything that looks amiss. Maybe you could even find footage of Sinclair as she if she was with a group. Mansell, take a team and conduct door-to-door interviews of the surrounding area, see if anyone heard a struggle, cries for help—anything. Kent, speak to the staff that worked last night; it shouldn’t be too difficult to track them down. Miles, with me.’

Chandler looks to each of them in turn, face set, and rests his final gaze on hers.

‘Report back here at one.’

*

Miles walks in with another set of morgue photographs in his hands six days later.

‘As you all know, another woman was found strangled last night.’

They do know, now.

‘Cate Bagley, twenty-five; her body was found just before midnight two streets away from Capital by a student on her way back to her flat for the night. One of her workmates has already identified her; she was out with Cate last night and may very well be the last known person to see her alive. Mansell, you’ll manage the interviews. Kent, Riley, go back to the scene and retrace any likely walking routes, focusing on those which could keep two people hidden relatively easily. There may be CCTV, or evidence we have yet to find.’ 

Kent catches Riley’s eye, a gentle affirmation of Chandler’s orders, but neither of them make to move. They’ve all been working together long enough to know that Chandler’s not finished. Kent can tell from his face, from the furrow in his brow and the tightness of his mouth. 

‘Now, beyond placing her movements, we need to consider the similarities between Lisa Sinclair and Cate Bagley’s deaths. Both were strangled manually, death occurring as a result of compression of the airway and interference with blood flow. Both are known to have spent the evening of their death in the nightclub Capital, both with groups, and both were not—as far as we know—seen to leave the building. Neither had mentioned to their companions that they were planning on stepping outside; neither was killed inside. There are uncanny similarities in their injuries, although they are not identical. Neither had any material stolen from them, although both were carrying cash and smartphones.’

Chandler pauses as if to consider all he’s said, and sighs.

‘In light of this evidence, we are treating these deaths as linked.’ 

They double down with solemn nods, but even so, they’re all too aware that it might not be enough. 

*

They never see Llywellyn in the incident room—except they do, nine days later, when she arrives with Chandler’s lamenting expression in tow. 

‘Elain Jeffries, née Morris, was found strangled last night in the women’s bathroom of the same nightclub linked to the deaths of Lisa Sinclair and Cate Bagley. She and a group of friends came down to London from Cambridge for a hen night and ended up at the club in question. She was seen speaking to a man of nonspecific description by several witnesses in several different locations.’ 

There’s a palpable collective intake of breath, a sudden halting of their general work that gives them all a shot of misplaced hope.

Chandler continues with a pinched expression, disappointment and anticipation mingling. ‘No one can give many identifying details, but that’s the nature of the location, and one or two mention that the interaction did not always seem amenable. This unidentified individual is now our top priority—Miles, you and Mansell re-interview everyone linked to Sinclair; Kent and I will approach those liked to Bagley. Riley, we need detailed statements from each member of that hen party, and the woman who first found the body.’

It’s a push forward, a clenching of jaws and dry swallowing as they climb to their feet, collect their jackets, their things. A battle cry of their own.

‘Forensics has suggested that our first and second victims were attacked by individuals of similar heights and builds; there are similarities on the visible injuries on Elain Jeffries that suggest that she, too, was attacked by an individual of the same sort. I think, now, that is it obvious that the evidence suggests a single killer. This may be his first mistake. An attack within the building is more likely to have been seen, or heard. If nothing concrete comes from any of the statements we take today, then we may have to appeal to the public.' 

Chandler looks at them; they look back at him.

‘I am afraid that we cannot discount the possibility of further deaths in the future of this investigation.' 

*

It gets to a point where Kent can’t stand to be in the incident room anymore. He can make it through the day but when the sky turns dark it’s as if he can feel all their gazes on the back of his head. Not just the victims but every photo they’ve added, every associate and flatmate and family. It’s as if they know they’re getting nowhere. Kent can’t stand the thought, the judgement, the prospect of no answer—so he bundles files into his messenger bag and pours over them in the armchair in his bedroom, mobile poised on the arm ready for use in face he spots something.

He hasn’t had to use it yet.

Even so, he’d planned to do the same thing tonight as he watched evening fall onto London’s eastern skyline. At least, he was until a brief glance over his shoulder brought him into eye contact with Chandler, tired-eyed and overcome. He couldn’t just leave him like that. Chandler hasn’t turned to him yet—only the files, the archive, pens and paper and typeface—and Kent hasn’t thought any offer of his would have been accepted. But the way Chandler had said, ‘You don’t have to keep checking on me. I’m going home tonight, by popular demand…’ when Kent had tried to surreptitiously sidle up to his desk told him to risk it.

So there he is, standing outside Chandler’s flat door, for no apparent reason at all.

The light at the end of the hall flickers in the corner of Kent’s eye; the bulb’ll go soon, probably tomorrow or the day after. Something pangs in Kent’s chest as he bulb falters again and he realises what that would do to an overworked, overtired Chandler when he trudges into his flat. Just another in the a line of things that make Chandler clench his jaw, rub at his temples, swear out of the corners of his mouth. The image alone makes Kent’s mouth go dry; he swallows, concerned. Another thing he carries on his shoulders. Two peas in a pod, really. In a way.

Kent knocks with two short taps of his knuckles, and waits for the snick of the latch. It doesn’t come immediately and Kent can just imagine the disgruntled look Chandler would shoot the offending door. He isn’t expected, they haven’t arranged anything, but then they rarely do and Chandler must suspect because there’s a pause in his steps as he approaches. 

(Still got his shoes on. Not a brilliant sign.)

Chandler must recognise him from the distorted vision through the peephole because even as Kent listens to him twist the key and unhook the chain the layer of polished wood doesn’t budge, doesn’t sway under the influence of a hand. Kent frowns, his thoughts plastered all over his face—he doesn’t have the energy to smother them anymore—and when there are retreating steps he inches forward, tries his fingers on the doorknob. It gives, and he pushes in. Chandler hasn’t pushed him out yet, after all.

(In a strange part of his brain, the bit Kent doesn’t air often, he’s wondered when that inevitable moment will come. He desperately hopes it isn’t now, when he’s there as much for himself as he is for Chandler. He’s never been entirely selfless.)

Kent doesn’t glance around the room as the door falls open. Instead he continues on as if they’re not abnormal, as if everything’s fine and they’re like every other couple on an (admittedly late) dinner date. Kent moves quietly, as close to silence as he can bear, toeing off his shoes where Chandler usually leaves his, making a point of flicking the lock back into place, replacing the chain, rattling the latch. Comfort blanket things, really, and God knows they could do with some of those at the moment.

When he does find that there’s nothing else for him to mess with, when he does turn and lets his eyes see out the familiar tones of Chandler’s person, he finds a shadow. Chandler hasn’t bothered to put on the overhead recessed lights, just the weak undercounter ones that illuminate the side of his face in a pallor Kent’s seen once or twice before at crime scenes and in the station toilets. He’s still in his suit as well, jacket and all, although by Kent’s reckoning he left the office at least two hours ago. He’s leaning on the counter much as he’s been leaning on his desk all day, though his back is curved over a bottle now instead of a file. Kent’s sure there’s one of those around, too, somewhere just out of sight.

He doesn’t want to find it.

‘Are you all right?’

Chandler doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to, not really, silence is answer enough but it’s a troublesome one. In truth Kent’s not sure why he asked at all—it isn’t as if he isn’t privy to most of what would be bothering him, at least on a technical level—but standing there, one shoulder braced against a doorframe while Chandler flexes his fingers against the edge of the granite and swallows around the burn of alluringly amber alcohol, makes Kent feel that it might be the only way he’ll be able to reach out. He doesn’t know how many people do ask. Maybe the more he does it, the more Chandler might come to accept it as an honest question.

He doesn’t yet.

Kent ventures further into the flat, keeping his step light and pointedly avoiding the most direct route to Chandler’s side. It’s an odd dance, this, yet they do it. By the time Kent’s rounding the last impeccable corner Chandler’s turned over his shoulder to watch him. He reroutes his gaze back to the chiseled glass in his hand when he notices Kent’s looking back at him, so Kent sidles up beside him, slots himself between the equipment and the line of Chandler’s tense body, his barely steadied breaths brushing the seam of Chandler’s shoulder as he waits. For what he doesn’t quite know; definitely not an answer. They’ve got none of those. That’s why they’re in this state.

Chandler finally turns to look at him, slow and resigned. He seems exhausted, his frustration dampened by sleeplessness.

‘I’m tired of trying to drink.’

Kent glances to the lowball glass, to the layer of liquid that Chandler hasn’t managed to polish off yet. They’re silent but there’s a slight twitch as Chandler offers the glass somewhere in Kent’s direction. Kent doesn’t acknowledge it, just slides his gaze back at Chandler’s heavy eyes and raises a gentle hand to trail across the back of the man’s neck, pulling him towards him with a slight flex of his fingers, a tug that’s as much a suggestion as an askance.

Their noses touch before their mouths do.

They kiss with mouths open, clumsy. Chandler tastes of brandy, of cognac—Kent can’t tell the difference but wraps his fingers around the older man’s head, cradling his skull as arms slide around his ribs. Chandler’s touch is ghosting and heavy all at once, there and yet not, everything and nothing at the same time. They are just heat, mutual heat, and it spills between them in the swallowed sounds they share.

A sharp, desperate intensity engulfs them; they’re somewhere between hell and home, lost in the policeman’s limbo that leaves them raw, unfeeling for feeling too much, abandoned. They’re trying to get their bodies closer as well as their mouths but it doesn’t feel physically possible to have enough save for climbing into each others skin, escaping that way. Instead Chandler groans, his tongue scraping against Kent’s and Kent lets him push him back, maneuver his steps, stagger against tile with his arms wrapped around Chandler’s neck and not reaching to chart the environment. A very odd sort of trust exercise, one that curls his toes and makes him arch up into the curve of Chandler’s body, makes him whimper as they clash canines, noses.

They don’t care anymore, do they? Except they do, they _do_ , and it’s unbearable.

Chandler’s got his hands in Kent’s back pockets, pulling him hard against his hips, but he’s pressing their torsos back against the oven; Kent can feel the handle and knobs pressing into the skin of his back, probably leaving marks but he doesn’t care, he really _really_ doesn’t, as he curls a leg around Chandler and urges him closer, pulls out the growl in his throat. 

They’re both on the receiving end of biting kisses, bruising, like they hate each other for making them feel like this when they think they shouldn’t. Or is it that they want to forget everything but the sting, because it’s the only one they can soothe with a swipe of a tongue or a low hum? Kent can’t tell, he doesn’t want to, he just wants Chandler’s weight against his chest and its the first time he’s been able to breathe for days, with this man’s tongue in his mouth. 

It would be easier, more efficient if they stuck to removing their own clothes with sightless familiarity but even as they stumble through the flat, stepping on and over fabric as it hits the polished floor, there’s no way Kent wants to take his hands off Chandler if he doesn’t have to. Instead he presses his fingers into the swell of muscle, the expanse of skin that presses close as white cotton ends up hanging haphazardly on a doorknob; a ragged gasp escapes Chandler as Kent mouths at the hollow at the base of his throat, a half-wheeze half-whine as Kent sinks his teeth into the skin surrounding Chandler’s collarbone.

They are vulnerable in all their violence, in all their dominance, Kent’s fingers digging welts into Chandler’s shoulders, Chandler’s mouth hot against Kent’s cheek. They don’t speak—not that they usually do, but there’s normally at least something, some breathed words, smiled names, simple murmurs. There’s nothing now, just insistent hands and pressing mouths and dull thumps as their backs collide with the edges of furniture. The glass of a mirror clanks as their combined weights bang against the wall; Chandler just groans, guttural, and Kent pushes them back into a stumble towards the made bed while he still can.

He catches Chandler just far enough off guard to achieve the movement but not to complete it. They stagger to a stop, Chandler’s solid body heaving hot against Kent’s, teeth biting hard at the edges of mouths, at the skin they can reach. Warm hands take hold of the bared skin at Kent’s waist, although their touch isn’t anywhere near as gentle as it usually is. It’s a demand, not a question, and Kent gives in without thinking; he fights to keep the warmth of Chandler’s mouth for a moment, a struggle he can half-win, but as the fingers gesture a twist of his hips he obliges. Chandler presses close behind him, their bodies slotting together as they know they do, now, and as the tips of Chandler’s fingers slip beneath denim Kent whines and throws his head back hard enough to crash against the bone of Chandler’s shoulder. He gets a swift nip to the ear for his trouble and Chandler’s hand withdraws, palm flat over the plane of Kent’s stomach as he pulls him back against him, watches his ribs expand and contract in a desperate inefficient in-out, in-out.

But Kent needs it, wants it, _needs_ it so viciously in that moment it’s frightening. It’s as if they don’t want to think anymore. As if all they can do is dig deeper into one another, bury their heads in the sand and lose themselves somewhere they can’t be found.

It’s not noble, it’s not graceful, when are they ever? Pleasure is corrosive. Chandler’s hands fumble over the button on Kent’s jeans, tripping over themselves in their haste and frustration, and Kent can barely think straight enough to remember how to help him. When he does try Chandler growls and bats his hands away, using one of his own to hold them still, flush against Kent’s stomach, while he deals with the trousers himself. Kent can feel his heartbeat, pounding and alive, under their strained hands, hitching as Chandler pulls at his waistband, his boxers. 

As the material pools around his ankles he steps out of them, kicking the pile slightly to the side Chandler dips his head to lick a stripe up the side of Kent’s neck, ending with teeth on his earlobe and a rasped command, ‘ _Bed_ ,’ in his ear. Kent shudders as Chandler steps away, the only point of contact the wide palm he’s spread on Kent’s back that pushes him to his knees against the duvet. He tries to catch his breath in the moment of respite but can’t as he listens to Chandler curse at his own belt, shove and discard as he pulls himself loose of his clothes and leaves them in a pile next to Kent’s as he settles in behind him on the bed, the hammering of his heart heavy against Kent’s spine.

He can’t help the gasp that escapes as Chandler brushes against him, across him as he leans towards the bedside drawer. Even in his desperation Chandler’s not one to forget a condom, and ever since he’s been comfortable in their arrangement he’s never once wanted to be responsible for any pain or injury. Even so, they’ve been having frequent enough sex for Kent not to be overly concerned about careful preparation. Kent’s glad of it; he doesn’t feel in the mood, not with his and Chandler’s harsh breathing seeping into every corner of the room, not when all he wants is the sensation of being filled, all-encompassed. The very knowledge that when it happens it’s the only thing he can think, can comprehend. If his chest was pressed to Chandler’s he’d be scrabbling at his waist, his shoulders, pulling him past his anxieties and just urging him in.

‘Kent?’

(Chandler doesn’t sound like he really knows what he’s asking.) 

‘Just—’ Kent arches into the slicked hand that slides across the small of his back, its promise. ‘Please.’

He sounds more desperate than he thinks he feels, but as Chandler presses close and nods into the damp hair at the nape of Kent’s neck he can’t think that each sensation is anything more than maddening. There’s a sudden hesitation in Chandler’s movements, as if he’s second-guessing Kent’s pleading, so he keens and pushes back, searching Chandler out in the dark behind him.

‘ _Do_ it.’ 

Chandler’s hand tightens for a moment where it had wandered to Kent’s shoulder, and with a long exhale Kent knows he’s made the choice. Chandler does as he’s told and words, snippets slip out of his mouth that might make sense to Kent if he wasn’t bearing down, wasn’t leaning back onto Chandler and gasping out his own inconsequential curses until he bites his lower lip and presses his forehead into the duvet. Chandler follows, one arm wrapped around Kent’s middle, and presses his mouth to the crook of the exposed neck, breaths coming in harsh bursts through his nose. Kent can feel every pulse, every throb of heartbeat, every inch of heat that Chandler’s plastered along his spine; even the sheets feel cold in comparison where he braces himself on his forearms, caught between pressing back into the curve of warmth and pressing down to relieve some of the need for friction. For anything.

The whimpers that Kent’s been hard-pressed to smother become growls of impatience, even though he hasn't had the time to become impatient.

‘Move,’ he mutters, breath half gone, and when he can feel a slight lost laugh from Chandler he fists his hands in the sheets and pushes back.

The noise Chandler makes is muffled in his throat but Kent can place it; it’s his, after all, isn’t it? Whatever it is it signals something breaking, something snapping that has to be done each time, the breaking point that they have to push before Chandler will let himself go. In some vague point of Kent’s mind he thinks that the threshold’s lower tonight, it has been from the moment he walked in but each short thrust sparks bright behind his eyelids and there’s a sound coming from his own throat that he doesn’t recognise.

He doesn’t have the distraction of Chandler’s mouth, of Chandler’s skin, just the slide of Chandler’s forehead against the side of his neck with each thrust, each hitched exhale and laboured breath. Just the Egyptian cotton between his teeth, not the plumpness of Chandler’s bottom lip. Just the clambering clutching at whatever his fists can grasp as Chandler finds his rhythm and settles into an intriguing forcefulness they haven’t experienced before. Somehow none of it is a loss. He whines anyway, a moan knocked out of his lungs with each flex of Chandler’s hips. 

Chandler presses his face to Kent’s slender back, damp panting warming the line of vertebrae, and moves his palm away from Kent’s stomach to stroke at his cock; Kent keens, writhes. It’s a fall of pleasure caught with pain as Chandler fastens his teeth into Kent's neck like he needs something to hold on to, the sudden sting surprising him into release. Chandler huffs through his nose as Kent cries out in a dry sob, tightens the grip of his arm and follows. Kent doesn’t think any sound could be better than the whine Chandler leaves in his ear, long and low and lost. 

Something akin to relief settles in Kent’s stomach as he smiles into the cotton, wide and giddy, all his limbs just on the wrong side of relaxed to be able to hold himself up properly. Chandler fares a bit better as he pants into the air next to Kent’s head, his arm still a solid lift against Kent’s chest and his other hand stroking over the skin within reach of his slow fingers. He dusts kisses across Kent’s shoulders, the softness only serving as a reminder of the smarting teethmarks in his skin, and when Chandler slides free of his body it makes Kent arch a little. There’ll be marks all over him tomorrow, and all over Chandler, too—bruises, broken blood vessels, purpled skin. How they managed to litter each other with such extensive reminders in such a short time is a mystery to the both of them as they catch their breath, chests heaving against each other in the moments of silence and dark. Their problems, their cases hide on the periphery but they don’t come in. Not yet.

Eventually—it could have been five minutes or half an hour, Kent can’t tell anymore—Chandler collapses beside him, rolling over onto his back and raking both hands across his face. Kent mirrors him after finding just enough breath to move, settling his sore limbs into the plush bedding that’s much more disheveled than usual. His mind’s still comfortingly empty, with just the hazy aftershock of pleasure coming to the fore, when Chandler turns and bundles his nose into Kent’s shoulder.

He’s got his eyes closed when Kent turns to look at him, but he must know he’s done it because he speaks anyway. ‘We’re a mess, aren’t we?’ 

‘Yeah, we are.’ The answer comes out quickly, his tongue looser than it usually would be with Chandler but it’s true. They exchange truths as a matter of form. It’s a winding train of thought, though, and not one that Kent wants to get lost down so he adds, ‘I don’t mind, though.’ 

‘No,’ Chandler murmurs, and when he opens his eyes Kent shivers. ‘No, I don’t think I do, either.’

Kent can’t tell whether it’s worth smiling. Chandler doesn’t, just shuts his eyes again and presses closer to Kent’s skin before raising his head to leave a kiss on the crest of his shoulder. He scrambles off the bed in a manner entirely incongruent with his character, still wobbly, and heads for the ensuite. Kent watches him go, eyes unfocused and limbs lazy, and he turns to burrow his face into Chandler’s pillow as he waits for the distinctive sound of the shower. He might smile a bit into the pillowcase, half-contemplative, but when he hears the stream of water Kent heaves himself onto his feet and leaves the cocoon of Chandler’s scent behind. He knows everything will come crashing back now, both on him and Chandler, and the one part that he can alleviate lies discarded around the apartment, on floors and the backs of chairs and doorknobs. Scattered, messy, perfectly acceptable at the time but Chandler must be thinking of it now, so Kent pads softly and collects their things.

And, although he doesn’t really notice, he moves around the flat as if it’s his own.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 19 December 2013.
> 
> Again, thank you so much for all the comments and kudos! :)
> 
> Some housekeeping notes: I'll be away from (reliable) internet between 16-18 December so I apologise in advance if any of my responses to comments are slower than they usually are! There won't be any disruption to the updates, though. The next chapter will undoubtably be up on time!


	6. Chapter 6

‘What connects them?’ 

Chandler’s voice rings out through the silent incident room. None of the officers respond immediately, although from where Kent’s standing he reckons Mansell might just have had a thought. What a novelty for him.

The idea translates into words and a resigned shrug. ‘They’re all women.’

‘That’s helpful,’ Miles quips, sarky from where he’s perched on the edge of Riley’s desk, arms crossed. 

Still, Kent writes it down.

He can feel Chandler’s gaze watching the fluidity of his fingers as they shape letters on the whiteboard. Kent knows he’s awful at writing quickly in straight lines without some sort of guidance—thank goodness for dot grids—and he’s already sloping a bit because of how close they’ve pulled the desks but Chandler just sighs and turns back to the group.

‘Anything else?’ 

Riley removes the pen she’s been chewing from between her teeth. ‘They all look relatively young.’ 

Miles scoffs. ‘Everyone does, these days.’ He shoots a look at Kent. ‘Even the bloody coppers.’ 

Mansell and Riley snicker; Chandler and Kent ignore them. 

‘Sinclair was twenty-one, a student,’ Chandler begins, slowly, as he turns to look at her photograph. ‘Bagley was twenty-five and left university five years ago. Different school and course, anyway. Jeffries was twenty-seven, recently married and never went to uni.’ The hand that he’d raised to gesture at each woman falls to his side. ‘Certainly not a profile.’

They all sigh, another heavy exhalation into an already heavy atmosphere. They’ve gone through all these ideas before, in one way or another, but they’re doing it again because it’s all they can do besides twiddle their thumbs waiting for more extensive forensic reports. Plus, they all know far too well that they aren’t infallible. They might have missed something. They each throw out obvious lines of reasoning, Kent writes them down and Chandler disproves them with a self-deprecating tone that none of the like, not even him. 

But the morning still isn’t nearly as difficult as Kent had feared it might be. They’d passed a line last night, somewhere, but it had sped past so quickly that he couldn’t possibly see what it was. In any case, he’d left Chandler’s flat in the wee hours of the morning with a parting kiss to his cheek as he slept, and hadn’t spoken to him until they’d almost collided next to the kettle. Then there that smile was, the quiet one that Kent hadn’t found when he’d wanted it, and his stomach fluttered.

Kent thinks once or twice that he can see the angry bitemark on Chandler’s collarbone through the fabric of his shirt, but he can’t. Not really. Except he can, he can see it just as it was when he bit down and when he soothed it against the flat of his tongue and when Chandler noticed it in the mirror and gave it that strange look, a mixture of creeping pleasure and dismay. Kent wants to see it again. He wants to see how many different ways he can see it again.

‘Why were they there?’ 

He shakes himself back into the room; Chandler’s surveying him out of the corner of his eye but Kent’s more concerned with rerouting his attention to Skip, to looking like he’s been listening. That’s what he’s supposed to do with his sergeant, after all.

Miles looks between them all, gesturing with a truncated jerk of his thumb to the opposite end of the board. ‘What’s so special about this Capital place, then?’

‘Why is anyone there?’ Riley leans back in her chair and pulls her hair into a haphazard ponytail. ‘To have a little dance, to have a few drinks, to have a laugh. Standard nights out, haven’t any of you ever been on one?’ She fixes Mansell with a sharp gaze. ‘Not you. I know you can’t remember any night out you’ve ever been on. But as far as we know, all of our victims were only out for a bit of fun. No funny business following any of them around.’

‘Obviously there was, eventually,’ Miles says, voice dry. ‘If there wasn’t, they wouldn’t be dead.’

Riley lets her hair fall across her shoulders, and searches the surface of her desk. ‘Kent, tell us again what you found out about the club.’ 

He clears his throat and twists the pen’s cap between his fingers. ‘There’s nothing particularly special about it. Just a bog-standard nightclub, there’s ten a penny around here. There’s no speciality or anything—’ Kent frowns as Mansell splutters around his sip of tea, dissuading any brewing jokes that he seems to so favour at times of duress. ‘—and the only noteworthy thing about the place is that it’s been linked to each of these deaths. They’ve not even booked a big-name DJ since the beginning of 2009.’

Chandler looks a little crestfallen in face of the conclusion, and Kent can’t have that. He gathers his wits to try and keep his train of thought going.

‘Lisa Sinclair,’ he begins, pushing through the mess of desks to walk towards her photograph with an outstretched arm, ‘lived nearby. She may have been studying at the LSE but you only get housing for your first year most of the time, and she was in her final year. She shared a flat on Old Castle Street with a couple of Londoners with places at London Met who couldn’t get rooms in halls. So for her it was probably convenience.’ Kent pauses and taps the board beneath Cate and Elain’s faces, the open marker leaving small dots of ink on the surface. ‘They’re harder to place. Bagley worked in Covent Garden, at an architect’s. Jeffries didn’t even live in London, she was just down for the weekend. So why did they choose a no-name club that’s not even on a main road?' 

‘Why wouldn’t they?’

The addition of Ed’s voice breaks something in the air. They all turn to look at him, limbs paused in limbo as their heads search him out and find his argyle sweater loitering just beyond the entrance with one arm wrapped around a substantial folder. The manila strikes a vague tinder of interest in their minds, a longsighted (and probably misaligned) suggestion of something to go on.

Ed just seems to find their stillness baffling.

‘It’s just as valid a question.’ He removes his glasses and shrugs. ‘Joe, you asked me to find a precedent?’

A silent moment stretches thin before Chandler snaps the lid back onto the pen in his hand, extending the other to beckon Ed further into the room at the same time. They all converge around the central desk—Mansell’s, judging from the sweet wrappers, but they’ve been moving them around all day so it could just be litter. Ed separates the two files he’s holding with an index finger and offers one to the set of curious eyes. A slight shift in his grip and the sides fall apart, supported by the spread of his palm.

‘Bible John.’ 

Something in the name tickles remembrances in the back of Kent’s brain but it doesn’t awaken. Instead he cranes his neck to get his gaze closer to the papers, the words that he’s desperately trying to read but he can’t quite make himself focus on any one thing. There’s a photofit, vaguely familiar as they always are, although it’s yellowed around the edges. Ed lets the edge of the file free from his fingers as Chandler pulls it towards himself, neck curved to peer at the pages. Kent hovers at his elbow, eyes flitting between the muscle in Chandler’s hand and the doubled pages, the photocopies and originals.

‘Glasgow, 1968 and 1969,’ Ed continues, the pause for impact shorter than it might have been before. Even he’s feeling it, the atmosphere as they get nowhere. ‘Three women—Patricia Docker, Jemima McDonald, and Helena Puttock—were killed after nights spent at the Barrowland Ballroom. Each had been strangled, sexually assaulted, and beaten, and their bodies were left close to where they were killed. A lane off Carmichael Place, an old tenement building near MacKeith Street, and in the back garden of a flat in Earl Street, respectively.’

‘Not at this…’ Chandler trails off, lifts the corner of one stapled paper. ‘Ballroom?’

Ed shrugs with one shoulder. ‘No, but it is clear that the killer was using the Barrowland Ballroom to, uh, source his victims.’

Chandler nods and flicks through another couple of lays. ‘And the perpetraror?’

‘Ah, well, there were very rudimentary descriptions of the killer. Helen’s sister described the him as a young man, tall, slim, with reddish or fair hair. He was polite, well-spoken; he’d given his name as John Templeton or John Stempleton—she wasn’t sure which—and she claimed that he’d quoted from the Bible during their taxi journey home. However—’ He pauses, raises an extended finger and earns a slight gruff groan from Miles’ direction. ‘The bouncers at the Barrowland claimed that they’d seen the two sisters leaving with a short, well-spoken man with black hair. They never quite settled on a description.’

Kent looks up when Ed finishes speaking. There’s a sinking feeling in his stomach, dread prickling at the base of his spine. Ed many not be offering them any more words but it feels as if there are more to be said.

‘What about it, then, Ed?’ he asks, voice kept tight but he needn’t have bothered; even only halfway through the question the archivist’s face falls. 

He takes off his glasses, although as far as Kent can tell he hasn’t needed to use them to read anything. He knows it all off by heart anyway. 

‘It’s unsolved, I’m afraid.’

Riley’s intake of breath takes Kent by surprise; he’d forgotten she’d taken up the space on the other side of Chandler.

‘They never got him?’ she asks, jabbing a finger at nothing in particular but with a sort of indignant emphasis.

‘Unapprehended.’ Ed seems to manage to shake his head and nod at the same time. ‘A number of suspects were questioned, but no arrests were made and no further victims were attributed to the killer. It was Scotland’s biggest manhunt, and nothing came of it.’

‘Then how does this help us?’ Miles barks as he he hauls himself to his feet from where he’s been leaning against one of the mishmash of desks. ‘Not much cop, is it?’

‘Ah, well,’ Ed begins as Chandler lies the open file on the closest table, a telltale lilt in his voice that suggests he’s been thinking. ‘There is… a theory.’ 

‘Oh, here we go,’ Mansell says, thumping his feet against the desk as he slumps down in his chair and rolls his eyes. ‘There’s always a theory.’ 

‘Shut up,’ Kent hisses, because Chandler’s looking interested and he can’t truthfully say he isn’t, either.

Ed slides a second file out from behind the first; it’s more robust and sparks curiosity in Kent’s chest. 

‘There is,’ he begins, opening the folder and placing it directly on top of the first, ‘a possible link with Peter Tobin.’ 

Even Mansell’s ears prick at that.

‘Tobin?’ he asks, pulling himself back into a proper sitting position as Ed folds his arms and watches with a justified smug expression. ‘Serial killer and psychopath, Peter Tobin?’

‘Psychopath is no longer an accepted medical definition,’ Ed says, words careful. ‘But yes. That Peter Tobin. How many others do you know?’

Riley chuckles from behind her mug, although she leafs through the first layers of papers with her free hand. ‘Psychopaths? Plenty.’

‘Shut it.’

‘Stop it, all of you,’ Chandler scolds. ‘Ed?’

‘It’s not without its detractors, this idea. The eighteen-month gap between the first two murders is unusual. But the anecdotal evidence—’

‘Even you know anecdotes are close to useless in court.’ Miles huffs, arms crossed, but it’s more disappointment than disapproval.

‘Of course,’ Ed acquiesces with a certain degree of audacity. ‘But this isn’t a court.’ 

Chandler takes a moment to think—but only a moment—before he says, ‘Go on, then.’

Ed’s eyes glint in that way they do when he enters his element.

‘Tobin moved away from Glasgow to Brighton in 1969 with his first wife, whom he met at the Barrowland Ballroom in the same year as the killings. He was a devout Roman Catholic with strong religious views, and Helen’s sister claimed that the man they shared a taxi with either quoted from or referenced the Bible. One of the pseudonyms used by Tobin was John Semple, which is uncannily similar to the name that Bible John allegedly gave out. A woman said she recognised a magazine picture of a younger Tobin during a later Crimewatch appeal as a man who had spoken to her at the Barrowland—another woman makes the same allegation, saying that she was approached by the man in the photograph in the sixties, in the Barrowland ballroom. One of the detective who was on the original case says that he was sure it was Tobin, that he had his suspicious when they arrested him for the 2006 murders, and for the killings in the nineties that only came to light later. ’

He pauses, frowns.

‘DNA comparison between Tobin and Bible John is unlikely, because of poor storage of the samples. So we’ll never know; sometimes that’s the case, I’m afraid. But the investigations might tell you something. They failed so you might not.’

Kent doesn’t even care that he turns to look for Chandler as soon as Ed finishes the sentence; they must all do it, they all know what it means to him. 

Chandler clenches his jaw. ‘And what would you suggest we take notice of, Ed?’

‘The investigation had trouble with eyewitness accounts. There were a few, but given the situation and the likelihood of inebriation, they failed to get the appropriate interviews done in time to gather any sort of information they could be confident in. They focused on the wrong things, the wrong details—though who knows what the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ details are in any case, there are a thousand different possibilities—but they were sure that they were looking for one killer. He met them all at the Barrowland Ballroom, attacked them all in the same manner, all their handbags were missing, and each of them were escorted home by the killer and were murdered close to their own homes. The identikit that was given to the press was the first ever released to aid a Scottish manhunt, and it ended up giving them thousands of suspects to interview and, inevitably, clear. They muddied their own waters more than they needed to.’

‘Great,’ Miles mutters. Kent’s only just close enough to hear. ‘Bloody great.’ 

‘Well, uh… thank you for that, Ed,’ Chandler says, folding the files shut and holding them in the crook of his arm. ‘We’ll keep it in mind.’ 

‘I, um—’ Ed turns to him with a look that says he knows what he’s doing is a long shot. ‘I do have a book or two, I think, if you’d be interested.’ 

Chandler sighs. ‘We’ll see.’

The archivist nods, although he’s thinking. They can always tell when he is but this time it doesn’t seem as if he’s contemplating the files.

‘You have everything they didn’t,’ he begins, more to the boss than any of them now. It’s not as much of a show anymore. ‘All the tech. You’ve got a better chance than they ever did.’

There’s a conspicuous pause, then Chandler replies with what might just amount to a smile. ‘Thanks, Ed.’

‘Wait a minute,’ Riley says as she gets to her feet and marches towards the boards. ‘Why _were_ they all there?’

Miles rolls his eyes. ‘You just scoffed at me for asking that a minute ago.’

‘Lay off it,’ Riley counters, although her sharp tone is good-natured. ‘What if… well, this is a long shot, but none of them were there on the pull, were they?’

‘What?’ 

‘Jeffries was recently married—’

‘No guarantee, that,’ Kent mutters, eyes shifting to Mansell across the desk.

‘No, but we’ve got no reason to think she was there for any other reason that to celebrate her friend’s wedding.’ Riley turns to look at him with a keen eye and Kent can feel the colour rising in his cheeks. ‘Bagley was there on a works do, you’re hardly likely to try and take someone home from one of those—’

Kent has to reign in the urge to laugh. Really, now is not the time. 

‘And Sinclair was just out with some mates, not really for any purpose besides getting a bit tipsy and getting a few blisters dancing.’

Mansell huffs. ‘But what does that tell us?’

Riley sighs, one hand on her hip and the other pushing back the front of her hair. ‘I have no idea.’

Chandler turns to Kent and offers him the dry erase pen in an open palm. ‘But it’s something.’

Kent nods once, and writes it on the board anyway. Once he’s added the dot to the base of the question mark, it’s as if everyone’s been reabsorbed by their work. Even if Riley’s idea is a hundred miles off what actually happened, the fact that she’s had it at all triggers another wave of determination in their guts, another drive to read through everything again because there might be another long shot in there, somewhere. Ed’s even pouring over another file with Miles, and if that’s happening then Kent reckons they must be in some sort of alternate universe. He turns towards the papers on his own desk, shoved in a corner now and looking decidedly uncomfortable, but he swallows the vague distaste down and makes to return to the forms and the tables, the carbon copies and the case reports. 

‘Kent,’ Chandler says, catching Kent’s elbow with his hand for the briefest of moments.

‘Yes, sir?’

‘See if there’s a psych profile on Tobin.’ Chandler speaks steadily but directs his words to Kent alone. As if he’s entrusting him with something personal. ‘If there is, get it down here by the end of the day.' 

Kent nods, and doesn’t smile.

‘Of course, sir.’

*

Chandler tries to ignore the hands of his watch as they face him, ticking away against the wood of his desk, but when has he ever managed to do that?

The silent dark of the station doesn’t help either. He’s already gone through the incident room with the bin, picking the extraneous flotsam from each desk and reading, rereading, reading again the the hodgepodge of handwriting on the whiteboards. Even at two in the morning, when there still should be some activity with the night shift officers at least, the quiet feels stifling. Chandler’s painfully aware that he’s just sat there in the relative warmth of his desk lamp, not even really reading what’s in front of him anymore, and time’s passing. He doesn’t know how much has to pass but it might happen, mightn’t it? Chandler wants to be there when it does, wants to be on hand when the call comes in.

Because he can’t quite convince himself that it won’t come in anymore.

When’s he ever had that much luck?

(On the other hand, when’s it ever come down to luck?)

The shrill tone of his mobile takes him by surprise, and as he reaches for it his heart’s still lurching from when he’d initially thought he was on the receiving end of bad news from the office phone. Not that a call on his mobile couldn’t be bad news—it’s just as likely, really, especially at this time of night when he’d emphatically promised Miles that he wouldn’t stay in his chair all night—but doubt crawls at the inside of his stomach as he processes the letters and numbers. It takes him longer than it should to realise that it says Emerson Kent and not Ray Miles.

He frowns at the phone, holding it further away from his face as if it’s his eyesight that’s failing him, but the name doesn’t change and he’s got to answer it, hasn’t he?

(Could still be bad news.)

Kent must have a purpose in mind because speaks as soon as the line opens. ‘Hello.’

There’s a crackling in the background, as if he’s opening a pack of biscuits. Probably is. Why does that, of all things, make him want to smile? 

Chandler clears his throat, rubs at his eyes. ‘When did you go?’

Kent ignores the lack of typical response. As if they ever had those to begin with. ‘Close to midnight. I did stop and say.’

Chandler picks his gaze up from the edge of his desk and peers at the small spill of light from the hallway. ‘Did you?' 

‘Yeah.’ Kent allows himself a small, truncated chuckle. ‘Well, I wasn’t entirely sure it had got through but you looked as if it was better not to bother you.’

He huffs, though whether in agreement or disapproval Chandler can’t tell. It’s perfectly likely—he knows he gets like that, sometimes—and he’s grateful that Kent seems to know when to push and prod and when to leave him, but some twisting feeling in his chest makes him think that he’d like to be able to stop doing this, just once. For his own sanity. If he’s got any of that left.

‘You haven’t happened to have had any ideas in the interim, have you?’

(It’s his attempt at cynical humour. It’s much, much more cynical than humorous.) 

‘Fat chance.’ Kent sighs and pauses as if there’s more to that story than he’s willing to tell. ‘I can’t sleep.’

Chandler frowns at his stapler; it offers no advice. ‘Have you slept at all?’

Ket lets out another bark of a laugh, although this one is much more cutting. ‘Yeah, keeled over when I got in. Then there seemed to be something akin to a feline boxing match outside my window.’

‘Ah.' 

Chandler settles into an understanding silence, although the most he’s been bothered with in the past few years are urban foxes. Surprisingly quiet compared to their rural counterparts, as he’s experienced firsthand. It’s an odd thing to think about in the incident room, really, just like listening to Kent munch his way through a digestive in the pause is disconcertingly different.

‘Do you want me to come back in?’

Kent sounds hopeful, and Chandler can’t wrap his head around why he would.

‘No, no—go back to bed, Kent,’ he says, voice softer than it might have been in the past as his elbow clunks against the surface of the desk. He rubs at his forehead. ‘We all need our sleep.’

‘And you don’t?’

There’s a pause on Chandler’s end. He can’t quite figure out how to end it.

Kent rustles again, and a huff of breath rushes over the connection, as if he’s lodged the phone between his shoulder and ear again like he always does in the station. ‘Look, I’m not going to able to get back to sleep now. Are you going back to yours at all before the next shift?’

‘I’ll have to, won’t I?’ 

He doesn’t want to. And he does. Not really—half really. It’s all the same, isn’t it? He’s uncomfortable everywhere in this state, with this knowledge rattling around the back of his brain. Too much and not enough all at once. Over- and under-stimulated at the same time. Lost, paradoxical, aimless wanderer.

Kent’s voice is a firm, familiar sound in his ear. ‘I’ll meet you there.’

He shuts his eyes, hard. He can’t. ‘Kent—’

‘Joe, I’ll meet you there. I’ve had a few hours sleep, you haven’t.’ There’s a sound that’s definitely him picking up his keys. ‘I can’t sleep and neither can you.’

Chandler stumbles around his usual excuses, trying to find one Kent won’t be able to see through. ‘That doesn’t mean—’

‘I miss you.’

Whatever he was planning to say flees from his mind faster than he’d ever thought possible. He shuts his mouth, opens it again, tries to find the right things to say but can’t; Chandler rakes a hand over his face because he’d tried to ignore that thought three hours ago. He knows what Kent means. They’ve been sat virtually next to each other for days but it’s not the same, not without the rest. He misses the _rest_ too, because that’s what it is with them. Rest. Something that’s always felt off-limits when there are killers to catch.

That’s not it at all. But it is, a little bit, because his bed is cold and unfeeling without Kent in it, now. He’s too familiar, isn’t he? He shouldn’t _want_ like this, so selfishly. But if that’s how he’s thinking then being in the station’s not that much help either, because it’s without Kent too. Like him. He hasn’t put much thought into it, but yes, maybe it has got something to do with it. They—well, _he_ , he can’t speak for anyone except himself— he immerses himself and needs someone to pull him out. Normally Miles does it. But he’s been looking somewhere else recently, hasn’t he, and he wants to press close to Kent just to forget. For a while. For a few hours.

‘Yes,’ he says with a heavy sigh. ‘The same.’

‘I’m not after any funny business, Joe,’ Kent continues, his voice matching Chandler’s low tone. ‘Talk things through with me. Have a decent cup of tea in your own flat for once.’

Chandler huffs in laughter. It takes him by surprise.

‘Come on, give me something to do.’

Kent sounds like he might be smiling, now.

Chandler pauses, considers, and makes what very well could be the first split second decision of the night. ‘Give me half an hour.’

The man on the other end of the phone makes a pleased assenting noise, one that soothes something in Chandler’s mind so he can get to his feet and gather his things without feeling like all their eyes are on him, watching over his abandoned station in the night between now and the morning. Because they’ll do it, won’t they, and him sitting there doesn’t seem to be doing any of them much good. 

He swallows down the momentary bile and reroutes his attention back to Kent. ‘I’ll see you there, then.’ 

‘Wait, wait—’ Kent’s voice rattles out from where Chandler’s thumb hovers over the end call button. He returns the device to his ear. ‘Do you need anything from the shops?’

‘You don’t have to—’

‘Joe.’ Kent’s gentle scolding tone stops his words in his mouth. He can do that, sometimes, when he wants to. ‘Have you forgotten I work with you? I know you’ve not been perusing the shelves of Waitrose in your spare time.’

Chandler’s got enough sense to feel sheepish. ‘A pint of milk might be helpful.’ 

*

His flat’s just as anonymous as ever. 

It’s just as well.

Chandler sets his briefcase down where he usually does and tries to ignore the files he’s brought back with him for the inevitable likelihood that he’ll be up again at some point before the shift. He hasn’t got the confidence to think that even this will help that much. It’s worth a go, though, some part of him says so and maybe that’s why he’s rooting through immaculate drawers—some of which he hasn’t used in years—looking for his spare key.

(It’s just an idea. He’s been known to have them. Often in the car.)

He’s almost sure he’s got one. He definitely had one when he moved in, but he’d just put it away somewhere because he couldn’t have possibly even _imagined_ wanting to entrust it to someone else and, obviously, he’d promptly forgotten what he’d done with it. In his defence, he had had a lot on his mind at the time. (All the time.)

Chandler hopes he doesn’t have to go to his landlord to ask for another one—that would just add time that he doesn’t have and he wants to do it now, before he has chance to think about it and go back on the decision. Not tomorrow morning. He’s not sure he can stomach the thought of attempting to do it again. Once is enough. His heart’s in his throat already and it only gradually recedes as he spots a familiar glint in the back of a filing cabinet, reaches in and pulls out a perfect replica of the key that he’s clasping in the other hand.

Right, then.

Deep breaths.

The entire flat seems decibels quieter now he’s waiting for the gentle knock on the door. Chandler sweeps back through into the kitchen, slipping the key into his trouser pocket and sliding his coat off his shoulders, returning it and his scarf to the hook they’d come from that morning. He’s so desperate for something normal to do that he pours boiling water onto teabags before he remembers he’s got no decent milk. 

_Damn_.

The knock on the door saves him—or, at least, the tea. He turns to look at the sound before he responds to it, and as he reaches out a hand to turn the lock and twist the handle Chandler has to shut his eyes and take a shuddering breath. He doesn’t give himself chance to need another one and hauls the layer of wood towards him. Kent looks up at him from where he stands on the other side of the threshold, a thin layer of drizzle evident on his coat shoulders, the hood of his sweatshirt dappled with a similar pattern where it flops over the wool. A thin bag of shopping hangs from the fingers of one hand, and his helmet’s nestled in the crook of his arm. He feels… familiar.

‘Kent.’

Chandler doesn’t know why he says it. It just slips out, relief and tension tumbled into one.

If Kent notices his slight reticence, he doesn’t show it. ‘Hello. Me again.’

They exchange half smiles—it’s as much as they’ve been able to muster since the beginning, since that first call almost three weeks ago—and Chandler steps back to allow Kent in.

‘Semi-skimmed all right?’

He sounds brighter than Chandler feels, although there’s a resigned weariness about him that betrays the time.

Chandler follows him back into the kitchen, watching as he leaves his helmet on the rarely-used dining table. ‘How did you know?' 

‘I am a detective.’ Chandler might be able to imagine a smile to go with the sound of those words. ‘We keep milk at the station,’ Kent continues as he reaches for the fridge door. ‘And I thought I remembered the green lids.’

Kent ignores the answering silence and just gets on with things, like he always does. Chandler twists the key between his fingers in his pocket as Kent puts the milk away; he’s brought a loaf of bread as well, just in case, and he must notice the brewing tea because he leaves one pint out. Chandler takes over as Kent steps back to survey the area and, once assured that he hasn’t knocked anything out of place, turns to pull his coat off across his arms and hang it in the hall. Chandler waits, and adds the milk to Kent’s mug. It should be odd that he knows exactly how Kent takes his tea—he _is_ the DI, after all, he’s not supposed to be spending his spare moments making his team tea, but he does. He knows.

He doesn’t feel much more uncomfortable than he usually does with Kent pottering around behind him. If anything, the soft thud of his footsteps dampens the roaring, tenuous silence in Chandler’s head. He’d had accidentally picked up one of Kent’s sleep shirts instead of his own last time he’d tried to sleep with any sort of concentrated effort. That hadn’t alarmed him, just brought an almost-smile to his face. Kent himself wouldn’t be much different, would he? He’s a rather nice surprise. _They_ are, too.

Chandler swallows, his throat and mouth dry, and he lets his hand emerge from his pocket, key and all. ‘I, um—I think you should have this.’

Kent looks at the sculpted metal. Chandler can see why—he’s just as surprised he’s doing it, but in that moment sat at the first set of lights away from the station it had seemed like the most obvious decision in the world. Now it just seems as if the chill against his fingers has morphed into uncomfortable heat, and Chandler drops his hand and presses the key against the countertop, sliding it with an untempered scrape away from himself.

‘Uh, well, I just thought that it would make this easier. This bit. We wouldn’t have to leave together all the time. You wouldn’t have to hang around in the hall. No one would notice if you had an extra key unless they were really looking.’ He attempts a casual shrug, forgetting that he hasn’t managed one of those in years. ‘It made sense. When, um—when I thought about it.’

Kent’s face breaks into a tentative smile. ‘You’ve not got to convince me.’

Chandler can’t bring himself to do the same, even as Kent takes a step forward and reaches out to pull the key towards him, slim fingers wrapping around the metal as the others search out the keyring in his pocket. He wants to, but he can’t; it’s too much, all of it, the best he can do is stay the same. Maybe Kent knows. He knows everything else, everything else Chandler hasn’t told him. He’s no idea how, or why, but he’s guessed and had everything confirmed. It hadn’t taken long, has it?

(Or has it? Three years and he’s still a little bit afraid of him. God knows why.)

When he looks up again Kent is twisting his key onto the ring that’s already bearing the weight of several other clinking keys, presumably his flat and his bike and possibly even a locker at the station—Chandler wouldn’t know, he’s never liked the sound of those—but his looks no different hanging there, a lone bookend, a silent addition. It feels ominous, he doesn’t know why, like they’ve overstepped a line but they’ve been doing that for months so what’s the difference? And at the same time Chandler knows he doesn’t want it back. He wants Kent to have it, he knows _disappointed_ wouldn’t have been the word for what he’d be feeling if Kent had given it back it him. 

Yet he still can’t seem to make any words come out, even as they stand there watching each other in the quiet.

Kent’s mouth twitches into half a smile, eyes softening from concern to understanding. ‘C’mere.’

Chandler does, and Kent reaches out to gasp his jacket at his waist, pulling him closer until Chandler just relinquishes and wraps an arm around Kent’s shoulders and presses his nose into the warm junction of neck and jaw. It must be uncomfortable, they’re not the most well-suited heights for this but as Chandler breathes in and out, his breaths brushing across Kent’s skin and as the hand at his side flexes to readjust, to get better access to inch closer, he knows. Exactly what he knows is vague, just a shadow of a feeling, but he’s confident in that moment that he knows it.

Kent sniffs, swallows. Chandler can feel the movement of Kent’s throat against the line of his nose.

‘The tea’ll be going cold.’ 

The words are gentle, not really any sort of a warning, but Chandler still stiffens and releases his grip on Kent’s shoulders. He extricates himself from the embrace, self-concious a bit embarrassed by his own impulsivity, but Kent pats his side and the feeling doesn’t seem quite so pressing anymore.

And cold tea’s probably the least of their problems.

Kent’s hand slips away from its position against Chandler’s bottom ribs as he cuts across the kitchen to tend to the mugs they’ve left unattended for longer than necessary. He dips the knuckle of a bent finger in one and nods to himself, shaking the excess liquid off in the sink and licking at whatever’s left as he picks them both up.

‘The case, then,’ he starts, nodding towards their usual positions on the sofa.

Chandler obeys and ends up perched on the edge of the cushion, the coffee table much closer to his knees than it needs to be. ‘I thought I was supposed to be getting some sleep.’

Kent huffs out a well-meaning laugh. ‘I’m not going to tell you not to think about it.’ He fixes Chandler with an inscrutable look. ‘If I know you at all, you’ll spend all your energy on not thinking about it and what does that come down to in the end? Thinking about it.’

Chandler’s mouth twitches into a melancholy lopsided smile as Kent presses the second mug of tea into his hand.

‘If it helps to get it someone other than the inside of your head…’ Kent motions with his free hand, vague but reassuring, as he sits down in what’s rapidly becoming his armchair in Chandler’s mind. He grins, and it’s out of place, but it works. Somehow. ‘Start from the beginning.’

*

In the end, they have to go to the club.

Several nights in a row.

Kent does wonder, for a split second, why no one told him when he signed up for the police that he’d be spending so much time pushing through throngs of people disinclined to polite conversation with his hand wrapped around a longneck. 

But in the next moment Mansell’s at his shoulder, gesturing somewhere just out of Kent’s line of sight, and he clocks the man they’ve been keeping an eye on all night. Even with all the movement, all the distraction and shadow play, they can tell he’s moving with intent. It takes another beat of time, another few thumps of the song but it’s Mansell that spots her first, the ruffled blonde hair that’s a few people ahead of their man. Kent goes for his phone and even as the bright light stings at his eyes, he can see her turn back and mouth something to someone in the crowd, raising a hand and gesturing but the direction is clear.

Mansell narrows his eyes, and as she slips through a quieter doorway, the man watches her go.

It’s when he steps free of the crowd and follows that Kent sends the pre-set message to the boss and shoves Mansell between the shoulder blades. They crash through the crowd, ignoring the calls of _Oi, tosser_! and _Fuck off!_ that revelers throw in their direction. Their cover’s close to abandoned in the face of possibly interrupting the fourth killing they’ve been dreading for days, but the situation isn’t really out of place in an establishment like this. Most don’t even notice they’re trying their best to get through the crowd and just keep dancing—Kent gets an elbow to the face once or twice but doesn’t care.

‘Where did he go?’ Mansell hisses as they come to a stop in a part of the floor that isn’t quite so heaving. 

Kent glances around, his eyes darting from movement to movement set against the stillness of the back wall. His own breath is coming in waves, irregular not from the exhilaration but for the fear, the dread.

‘Shit.’

‘Wait—’ Kent ignores the vibration of his phone as he spots the shadow of a suggestion of the corner of his eye. ‘There. On the way to the toilets—there, go, _go_!’

‘Fucking hell—’

Mansell can’t finish his thought before they’re breaking through the periphery of the crowd, their faces just about visible from the edges. Kent feels like his heart’s threatening to burst from his throat as their charge stalks closer to the doorway, silent and unassuming in the cacophony. Mansell’s curling and uncurling one hand in and out of a fist, using the other to maneuver the more resistant out of his way. Something splinters under Kent’s foot—he can feel it crunch, disintegrate beneath the rubber sole of his Converse—but he spares only a moment to glance down and finds the man’s eyes staring straight back at him when he looks up.

Something falls into place in the moment that they all pause, hanging in suspension as they try and work through the maze of possible outcomes. The man, sinister for all his normality, flickers his gaze from Kent to Mansell and back again but recovers to dash to one side, abandoning the plan in favour of last-ditch flight.

Neither of them think twice about pursuing. Their feet and instinct make that decision for them. The chase moves in the opposite direction, crashing back towards the exits, weaving in and out of complications as the man sees fit. He’s trying to lose them, confuse them, Kent can tell; he’s better than that. They’re better than that, they’ve done worse, they’ve done better, they won’t let this bastard go.

The crowd’s starting to twig now that they're not just arseholes looking for a fight; an interested-looking bloke even throws himself in the path of their man but he's too quick, too used to doing this sort of thing to have a mere blockage stop him in his tracks. Kent makes a mental note to find the guy, after, thank him for doing something that not even all their men would do, but it'll be a miracle he'll even remember it happened at this rate.

The interruption distracts the man enough to make him think it’s a decent idea to glance back over his shoulder, to search out his pursuers by sight instead of instinct.

‘Police!’

Mansell’s voice is hoarse with drink and overuse, but the measure of panic that flashes across the man’s face is palpable; Kent can feel the inevitable palpitation from where they stand ten foot away. Then he ducks and runs, boots thundering across the floor, and they’re running after him without even thinking about it. They just do, policeman’s instinct, the trigger of every uniform officer. The raging music turns into a low hum in the background as the blood rushes in his ears, the adrenaline and the burn of lactic acid propelling him forward.

Kent keeps going as an overinterested drunk bloke gets in Mansell's way; he's determined in the way only half a bottle of vodka can underline, and Kent vaguely hears his teammate's cursing as he surges forward, watching for exits, for gaps, for mazes and dead ends. He doesn’t know if he can find any of them. He sometimes can’t, he doesn’t always know the ways out, he couldn’t find one once but it doesn’t matter anymore, does it, if he can just keep the back of this man’s head in view and his sights on the back of his jacket, the scratched leather, the wide shoulders. If he can just close the distance without someone else opening it again, without someone foiling the plans like they tend to do.

Kent can’t tell if he tripped or jumped, but either way the man’s suddenly twisting beneath his knee and Kent presses a hand into his back as Mansell joins him on the floor, hands scrabbling to immobilize their charge before he can recover from the shock. Mansell continues on, shouting the routine of every arrest as Kent struggles to master his breathing, to keep his arms from shaking.

The man’s still wriggling, swearing when there’s a hand on Kent’s shoulder. He looks back with wild eyes to find Chandler’s, desperately out of place in his Mayfair three piece suit, and even in the dankness of the club he can see a light in them that’s been missing for a month.

*

The high usually lasts longer.

Kent’s all right, even amidst all the jubilation, the laughs, the cheers and the claps on the shoulder, but it’s Chandler he notices through all the noise. The man’s not had much sleep, he knows, it’s difficult for him at the best of times but he looks dead on his feet in the corner of the incident room with a reluctant glass of whiskey in his hand and a droop in his shoulder that doesn’t suit him. Kent’s honestly surprised Skip hasn’t noticed—he’s usually the first to say, even if Kent’s the first to see—but he’s sat with his arm slung around Riley’s shoulders, clinking glasses with Mansell and his crooked grin.

After all, it’s not every day they come to the end of a month-long investigation with a live culprit.

(‘Bloody villians,’ Miles had said when he and Chandler came out of the interview room. ‘Why do they always want to tell you everything once you’ve got ‘em? They’ve enough bloody self-preservation until you haul them in here.’)

Kent had been relieved when Miles had suggested they leave Chandler outside, and positively baffled when the DI had agreed. Then again, Chandler had been the first to admit that he was a bit shit on undercover stints dressed up as nights out, and they all nod when he says he’s more useful elsewhere. For some reason Kent had been irrationally soothed by the decision; it’s ridiculous, he knows, Chandler’s been taking care of himself for thirty odd years and he’s got a good five on Kent but, well. It’s what he does, isn’t it? Wonders.

You can work yourself into quite a state with _wondering_. 

But, a week later, Chandler looks rougher than the rest of them put together and they’re the ones who’ve been propping up a bar with the Met covering the tab. Kent keeps an eye on him when he can, when whoever’s decided to talk to him is looking the other way, and it just gets worse. The man even yawns twice— _twice_ , for god’s sake—and that’s not something Kent’s even seen him do outside of the cocoon of their bedding. Chandler must, of course, with the way he sets up shop in his office more often than not, but… he’s got to the point where he’s doing it in front of the team. Not that he’d have much choice. Kent’s fighting the reflex himself, now.

Then there’s talk of going to the pub, and Chandler doesn’t look like he could possibly do it but Kent knows he’ll go anyway, if they ask.

He extricates himself from the PC he’s been speaking to—Andrews, a good chap, he did most of the CCTV sorting for the case and Kent can’t thank him enough for trawling through it—and weaves through the cacophony of drink and desks towards Chandler and his closed eyes, his pinching fingers and slightly downturned mouth. He doesn’t seem particularly distressed, or especially unhappy—just done, finished, tired. It’s unsurprising, he’s not been back to his flat to do anything other than change his suit in four days, but it’s still something that twists in Kent’s chest. But that’s what they do, isn’t it? Work themselves to the bone for a good reason for a good result and then cobble themselves back together again afterwards in the only way they know how.

Perhaps he doesn’t have to watch Chandler pick the pieces of himself up on his own anymore.

‘All right, sir?’

Kent keeps his voice light, eager, because that’s what they expect.

Chandler sighs and says, ‘Yes,’ in a way that Kent knows he means no. ‘You?’

He grins. ‘All right.’

Great British understatement—it brings a smile to Chandler’s mouth, an honest one, unmarred. 

Kent’s gesture slips from his lips faster than Chandler’s; he’s glad, Chandler needs something guiltless to smile about for a few seconds, even if it is only irony. He settles in to his space beside him—and it does feel like _his_ now, oddly enough, shouldn’t that frighten him?—and glances back over his shoulder. They don’t usually go anywhere near each other at the station, not much more than strictly necessary or acceptable, but as everyone else in the room can’t be bothered to pay attention to their quiet, peripheral conversation Kent shifts slightly closer and brushes a hand across Chandler’s elbow.

‘Are you sure?’

Chandler looks at where Kent’s fingers had been an instant beforehand, and glances at his face a moment later. He seems a tiny bit unsure for a moment and Kent’s tempted to risk a second touch, another connection or perhaps another step closer when Chandler sighs again and musters more solid words.

‘Yes,’ he says, and Kent believes him. ‘Just—God, it’s just a _lot_ , isn’t it?’ 

That’s an understatement if Kent’s ever heard one, but Chandler doesn’t really seem to be looking for a precise answer so he just hums and sips at his neglected drink. Chandlder rubs at his face with his free hand but keeps one shoulder braced against the doorjamb. Even in their silence there’s something about him that speaks to Kent, to his careful observation and interest; his spine betrays a tension that’s draining, a frustration that’s only compounded by its incongruency. Except after a moment Kent can understand why it’s there, why Chandler’s wrestling with it in much the same way he wrestles with everything.

There had been the rolling ball of relief and triumph, but the adrenaline’s gone and so’s the mania. What he needs now is a good night’s sleep—they all do, and they’ll all have one soon enough, but it’s Chandler who’s been forgoing them for longer and needs a way out. But—and it’s another direction of the same thought—Kent can’t quite shake the feeling he’d had either, the one where he hadn’t known and just done, just acted. It had worked but he’s no idea why, or how, or what—he just doesn’t. He’s thrilled, like the rest of them, all smiles and laughs when they’re there but it’s something beneath.

Maybe they both need a bit of peace and quiet.

It wouldn’t be the first time.

‘Shall we go?’

The words are out before Kent really thinks them. It’s just a habitual question now and his mind knows that’s what he wants, that’s what they both want, that’s what they need and he doesn’t have to waste time to bring it to fruition. Of course that doesn’t mean that Chandler doesn’t turn to him with a brief panicked expression and a flicker of his eyes to the team standing two lines of desks away, but Kent holds his gaze and raises his eyebrows. He’s asked now, he’s not going back.

He expects Chandler to spout off some excuse, palm him off with some phantom report or deadline but instead he nods—only once, but it’s definitely a nod with a hint of relief, of gratitude. Kent smiles back at him, half his mouth curving in the way he knows Chandler likes, and turns back to watch the revelry that’s quickly becoming too boisterous for the incident room. They’ve not got that much space, after all, and Chandler’s got to be worried about the official documents. That many glasses of whiskey and bottles of beer and flailing hands in a room plastered from wall to wall in papers bearing the name Metropolitan Police is a recipe for disaster. Even Ed couldn’t salvage any of it if he tried; not that he would, seeing as he’s nursing a glass himself as Riley beams at him.

Kent just tries to keep his smile within explicable norms.  It’s only when Mansell’s overloud chortle reverberates through the echoing room that Kent looks up, glancing around to make sure they hadn’t suddenly become the center of attention before twisting his head to find Chandler already watching him. Kent cocks his head ever so slightly with the suggestion of a question; Chandler’s hand twitches in an atrophied movement that might just have been an instinct to touch Kent’s arm, but it halts under its own weight and Chandler looks at the glass as if he’d forgotten he was holding it. Kent responds with a movement of his own, an involuntary reaction to the gesture, but gathers back his control as Chandler pulls his hand away and buries it in his pocket, fingers searching for something other than Kent’s fingers.

Kent looks away although he doesn’t want to; it feels as if they might be teetering too close now, too near to making it more obvious than they already do, and Kent’s even considering excusing himself to get in on whatever joke Ed’s just told Riley to get her doubled over in laughter when Chandler speaks again, softly but certain.

‘Here.’

Chandler presses his car keys into his hand without question, and Kent’s heart skips a beat.

He looks from the keys—unadorned, no keychain to speak of—to Chandler’s face. Then he pockets them, the weight sitting heavily in his jeans pocket, because if anyone saw him with Chandler’s car keys in his hand then they definitely wouldn’t be looking at each other this way.

 ‘Ten minutes?’ Chandler asks, raising the glass to his mouth and scanning the expanding crowd. 

Kent does the same, and he reckons his smile will probably be linked with a certain other event of the evening so he doesn’t waste any energy in trying to hide it. ‘Won’t even need that long.’

Chandler hums in reply. ‘Might be for the best.’

There are a hundred other things Kent wants to say, to do, but he settles for nodding in vague agreement. It’s the best he can do, given the circumstances. Chandler grunts beside him as he pushes away from the protesting door jamb, raising a hand to prod at the inevitable pressure in his neck. Kent watches out of the corner of his eye as he tips his head from one side to the other, eyes shut, and breathes out a heavy resigned sigh through his nose.

‘Go, sir,’ Kent says, his voice firm and back to the way they speak to each other when they’re not alone. ‘You look like you could do with the fresh air.’

Chandler cracks one eye. ‘It’s hardly fresh.’

Kent doesn’t prevent the amused expression, either, the way his smile widens. It’s not entirely a joke, not really, because it’s true and and sometimes Kent does wonder why Chandler stays in London at all, but he shakes his head and chuckles because that’s the effect Chandler wants, isn’t it? Kent thinks so, and he gives Chandler’s side a gentle push while no one’s looking. And, as much as he’s sure he imagines it, Chandler nudges him back as he turns to walk back into his office, one hand outstretched for his coat as he passes the hook where it hangs. 

The DC doesn’t let himself watch; Chandler’s made the decision now but Kent put the choice into his head, hadn’t he, so its their choice in a way, isn’t it? Either way he’s got to make an understated exit so he slinks away from Chandler’s doorway and weaves back towards his desk, towards his own battered khaki jacket he hasn’t worn in the station since before Chandler arrived, since before he’d been discharged. His mouth still goes dry as he grasps it away from the back of his chair, although it’s a different chair and a different office and a different time altogether.

‘And where are you off to, then?’

Kent thinks he recovers quite well from the involuntary jump that comes with Miles’ voice. 

‘Flatmates.’

‘Ah.’ Apparently that’s answer enough for him; Kent wonders if Skip ever shared a flat. It’s not a thought he’s had before, though the easy acceptance of Kent’s useless explanation suggests that he might think about it again the morning. ‘Tell them hello from me, then.’

Kent smiles and promises that he will as his fingers seek the cash he knows is in his coat pocket. ‘Have a round on me.’

‘We certainly will.’ Riley plucks the money from his hand with a wink and sips at the celebratory whiskey in her mug.

Miles lays a hand on his shoulder and applies a squeeze. ‘Good catch, lad.’

Kent’s about to say something when Mansell attracts their attention with a good-natured _Oi!_ and then he loses his train of thought. Chandler’s slipped out of the drafty room, coat pulling across his back where he’s shoved his hands in his pockets, and the bright lining catches Kent’s eye as he descends the short flight of stairs. 

It doesn’t feel different, this, does it?

There’s still the same shot of feeling.

*

Chandler rests the side of his head against the passenger side window the entire way back to his flat, and Kent’s never seen him that exhausted before. Then again, as he maneuvers the car into a tight parking space, Kent wonders if Chandler’s ever had the chance to let himself be drained. He always keeps going, doesn’t he? In his own way. 

They’re comfortably silent in the journey upstairs, in the lift and the corridors without character. They’ve spent too much time aimlessly speaking, just spitting out words and theories in the hope that one might just be right. Silence had been a luxury until this moment, until Kent let them both into the impeccable flat and let his hand linger on the layers of wool and cotton over muscle when Chandler reaches for the door handle.

They shed their layers—it’s customary, now—and even Kent’s glad to be rid of the jacket and the hoodie he’d put on under it. They both smell of stale smoke, spilt booze and the dank walls of the place; he might never have noticed in the past but he does now. He doesn’t even want to place the fabric in its usual place next to Chandler’s in the hall. Kent turns to one of the chairs in the kitchen instead, hooking the back of the collar over one corner and shooting it a distasteful look. He’ll be glad not to step into another club for a while.

Chandler glances back at him over his shoulder from the other side of the room, recoiling as he sniffs at an open pint of milk and promptly turns to pour it down the sink.

(Kent smiles. It’s a good thing he’d brought two, that night. He’d had a funny feeling that was how the situation would pan out.)

‘What’s left, then?’ Kent asks as Chandler drops the empty plastic in the bin. 

‘Just the report.’

The answer’s punctuated with another sigh, this one less moderated than the ones at the station.

Kent pushes a hand into his front pocket and shrugs one shoulder. ‘I could give you a hand with that.' 

‘No, no.’ Chandler speaks quickly, the fingers of one hand pinching the bridge of his nose. ‘You don’t have to.’

The words slow as his eyes slip closed again, the frown deepening so slightly that perhaps only Kent would notice it. He’s about to take a step closer, remove the self-imposed distance between them but Chandler opens his eyes and looks at him. Just looks, open, and if Kent has to guess he’d say it seems as if he’s trying to find a way to vocalize whatever thought it is that’s give him reason to pause. 

Chandler clears his throat, eventually, and speaks as he lets his hand fall away from his face. ‘Will you stay?’

(It’s almost as if Chandler is asking if Kent will stay even if there’s nothing objective for him to do. As if that’s a question that needs to be asked—of course he will.)

‘If you want me to.’ Kent smiles, the expression secure in the face of Chandler’s enduring uncertainty. ‘Go on, you look like you could sleep for about a decade.’

Chandler doesn’t answer, but he doesn’t particularly need to. The most telling response is always the slow smile that’s languid on Chandler’s face. Expressions linger on him when he’s tired, just like when he’s only half awake in the morning. It’s one of those things Kent would like to think only he knows.

‘Go,’ he repeats, smiling wider with a degree of affectionate exasperation.

Chandler moves under Kent’s touch, lets himself be pushed in the direction of his bedroom and turns back to him with the shadow of a smile before Kent moves to follow. They’ve been… whatever they are now, Kent hasn’t quite decided what yet, for so long that Kent’s got enough of his things at Chandler’s flat at this point. They’d both rationalised it by saying it was a good idea just in case they got a call out in the middle of the night. There’s only so many times he can use the excuse that he’d picked up the wrong suit in the confusion. Miles hadn’t looked that convinced last time. But, either way, Kent had been pleased. Still is, when they file through the doorway and Kent catches sight of one of his ties lying aside Chandler’s draped nearly over the back of the leather armchair, the silk pooling on top of equally expensive plaid wool.

He still can’t believe it. Any of it. 

Especially not the way Chandler just accepts him as a part of the landscape now, an expected presence. Kent wouldn’t have thought that was likely, even in his most optimistic daydreams, but there Chandler is, hanging his suit jacket along the line of others in the wardrobe, shucking his waistcoat off and not even thinking twice about letting Kent see.

‘Tea?’ Kent asks, a sudden surge of feeling making his throat constrict.

‘No, it’s fine. Thank you, though,’ Chandler says, almost distracted as he unbuttons his shirt and shrugs it off his shoulders.

There’s still a blotchy mark on Chandler’s collarbone, a reminder that still simultaneously makes Kent’s stomach squirm with want and triggers an incredible urge to apologise. He tries to forget how many times he’s had to bite his lip staring at the bruise at the crook of his own neck, almost gone now but he can still conjure up the dull sting with only a remnant of the memory.

‘Right.’ 

He retreats into the kitchen and stares at the tea as he stirs in the milk with a spoon, the clink louder than his own thoughts. The gentle thrum of water against tile weaves through the flat, and even that feels more conscious than the quiet. Kent smiles to himself—how has he come to find himself here, like this?—and sips at the hot liquid. He potters about at the water continues; he’s got a bit more energy about him, and Chandler’s shattered, and it’s almost become a compulsion to tidy up when he can because he knows it puts Chandler’s mind at rest. And it doesn’t get much rest, does it?

When Kent makes his way back into the bedroom, Chandler’s already folded the towel into a plush square and pulled back the duvet, a pair of familiar plaid pyjama bottoms sitting low on his hips. He turns to meet Kent’s soft-eyed gaze as his steps thud against the wood floor and muffle as he crosses the carpet, careful with his tea but still reaching an arm to wrap around Chandler’s middle. 

‘All right?’ Kent asks, pressing close to the water-warmth of Chandler’s skin.

Chandler hums, the vibration coming from somewhere low in his chest, so Kent smiles and presses a dry kiss to the side of Chandler’s throat. Something in the pitch of the vibration changes, deeper, happier, but Kent smiles and pushes Chandler’s waist towards the welcoming bed. He doesn’t follow, just with the lessening grip of his fingertips, but Chandler gets the point. He doesn’t have much fight left in him, after all, and the yawn that escapes his jaw as he nestles down under the covers finds its way to Kent’s mouth as well.

There’s a sense of relief there that leaves an empty spot in Kent’s chest, the place where he’s kept the anxiety of the past few weeks. Even he’s tempted by the covers now, eyelids heavy like they get after a long day at the office, and he places his near-empty mug on top of the chest of drawers. Kent leafs through the top drawer—there’s still a low thrill that comes with seeing his things in neatly folded piles next to Chandler’s, as if they’ve always been like this and hadn’t just stumbled there, muddled and confused—for something warm. Chandler might be able to keep himself as warm as a furnace without trying but November’s always been Kent’s enemy and his best ally is long sleeves, even under Chandler’s feather-down duvet.

‘Need anything?' 

Kent doesn’t expect an answer. There’s a depth to Chandler’s breathing that suggests he’s more than halfway asleep; he probably isn’t even able to string together a few syllables, let alone a coherent thought, but Kent asks because it’s familiar and it’s open and he gets to hear small slivers of Chandler’s voice that no one else does. It isn’t always plain, but in moments like this, Kent can just about believe that Chandler trusts him. Quiet trust, violent trust; they’re not the same. They can shag all they want and that’s only one level, only one part of what Kent wants and feels. It’s this serenity he wants in the interim, between the cram of cases and the tongue-in-cheek humour of the team.

His attention’s drawn by Chandler saying something half-drowned in sleep; he sounds content, calm, but it still catches Kent’s attention. 

He frowns. ‘What?’ 

‘Chalk,’ Chandler repeats, intelligible this time with a slight curve of his mouth. ‘I need chalk.’

Kent smiles, a warm flush making its way across the swathe of skin under his shirt collar, and before he can think better of it he leans to kiss the side of Chandler’s face. He presses an open palm onto the half of the duvet that Chandler hasn’t clambered beneath, and lowers his mouth to the crest of Chandler’s cheek, pressing his nose to the warmth of skin in with a rush of pleased contentment. Chandler shifts with a slight groan and a smile so that Kent manages a kiss to the underside of his jaw before pressing one to his lips.

He tastes of toothpaste, one that Kent has never liked before but he does now, in Chandler’s mouth.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 23 December 2013.
> 
> Thanks again for all the lovely reviews and support, this fandom is absolutely brilliant and I adore you all! <3
> 
> Sorry for not replying to reviews before posting this chapter--my time zones are all back to front at the moment and I'm going about this a bit backwards! But I felt that they deserved more than a perfunctory answer and I can dedicate my time to them properly after my dental appointment later today so it won't be too long. I hope you enjoyed this in the meantime! :)


	7. Chapter 7

Chandler knows it’s getting serious when he finds himself in Kent’s kitchen in the morning even when he’s not spent the night there. Which is more often than it should be, given the fact that Kent’s moped should still be within warranty. If they even give warranties out on the things. Do they? He’s never thought to check. Chandler almost gets his phone out to have a quick search, see if anything comes up, but Kent swears under his breath at the silent kettle and switches it on at the wall. The chuckle that wells up in his chest distracts him. 

He watches him move for a moment longer, the suggestion of movement under Kent’s waistcoat catching his eye as he reaches for a drawer, but shifts his gaze back to the folded paper on the counter before Kent can turn and catch him looking. It’s only an Evening Standard, bit useless really since it’s the previous evening’s edition but Chandler stands there reading it anyway. He might as well. Kent watches the toaster like a hawk—as if that’s going to make the bread crisp up any quicker.

After a moment Chandler says as much, and Kent laughs.

‘You never know. It might.’

Chandler gives an amused huff and turns the page. ‘Unlikely.’

There’s a shuffle and Kent looks at his watch, brow furrowed and mouth tight. ‘We’ve got the time, haven’t we?’

‘Don’t worry about it.’ Chandler meets Kent’s gaze with what he hopes might be a reassuring expression. ‘It’s fine.’

They share a quiet smile, Kent’s tinged with apology, and the toast pops up with a metallic sound that actually makes them both jump. Chandler turns back to the news, as unnewsworthy as it is, and just listens to Kent’s half hurried movements. He really doesn’t mind, they’ve done this before. Kent’s moped’s broken down again, and although Chandler’s tried to make him see sense and get something else, Kent loves that bike and is determined to spend too much of his paycheck on fixing it. Unfortunately that tends to take a few days, and Kent (understandably) hates the Tube. Chandler would much rather just give him a lift in, dropping him off outside the closest shop that serves a cappuccino in a takeaway cup so they arrive separately. It’s actually quite a comfortable variable in their routine, and when Kent pushes a cup of tea towards him Chandler accepts it with an honest, comfortable smile.  

‘Won’t be long.’ 

‘Like I said, it doesn’t really matter.’

‘Still,’ Kent says, shrugging before biting into one of the slices straight from the breadboard. 

Chandler doesn’t push it. He’s vaguely away of time going on, and it’s plainly true that they do need to be at the station at a reasonable hour, but it’s well within a decent interval before the start of shift and they’re relatively casual about it anyway in the lull after such a large case. It’s a week behind them now but they haven’t ended up with anything else on their desks yet. If there’s ever a time to be running late, it’s now.

Not that they are.

A third set of steps rattles through the corridor. Chandler and Kent turn to each other for a split second before watching the doorway. A shot of adrenaline courses through Chandler’s chest—there’s a vague chance it could be one of the two that don’t know, he hadn’t been convinced when Kent had assured him they haven’t been up before eleven when they haven’t had to for years—but Sarala’s voice calls out Kent’s name from behind plaster before she appears.

‘Kent! Oh, there you are,’ she says when she spots them, one hand holding her sopping wet hair out of her eyes. She turns to Chandler with a grin. ‘Hello. Thought I heard you come in.’

Chandler just about manages a nod. He doesn’t know where to look while she stands there in a fluffy towel dressing gown, still damp from the shower, although Kent seems to think it’s an entirely normal turn of events.

‘Morning,’ he says, washing down a mouthful of toast and butter with his tea. ‘Fred and Ol aren’t stirring, are they?’

She shakes her head. ‘No. I’ll eat my hat if that happened after what they got up to last night. Why?’ 

(Chandler really doesn’t want to know.)

Kent grins and tips his head in her direction. ‘Just seemed like a bit of an emergency.'

‘Piss off!’ Sarala scoffs but smiles at him anyway. ‘No, I wanted to ask you if you knew where all the extra towels have gone. For obvious reasons.' 

‘Clearly,’ Kent says with a knowing smile, and although he ponders the question with a degree of seriousness he ends up shrugging one shoulder as he turns back to his place. ‘Ask Joe, he’ll know.’

Another shot of cold dread drenches Chandler’s insides for a split second as they both turn to him, faces open and familiar but expectant. He can’t quite wrap his head around the fact that he might actually know. He hadn’t realised he knew things like that about Kent’s flat. Was it presumptuous of him? Or just a natural progression of things? He wouldn’t know, after all.

Chandler clears his throat and buys himself time. ‘What was it again?’ 

‘Towels. The white ones.’ Sarala pauses but continues again; it must be his face. ‘They’re thinner than usual because they’ve been washed so much and they’re more absorbent for it.’

Kent sniggers as he rinses off his empty plate. ‘You’d be a good witness, Sar.’

She shoots him a dismissive smile as Chandler tries to think if the description sounds familiar. It does, but he’s not been in the flat overnight for a few days and his memory isn’t as efficient for other people’s things. The main memories that come to mind of that night involve Kent’s gentle breathing against his chest as he drifts off to sleep, but in some point between that and their stumbling, distracted entrance he remembers similar towels. He remembers putting them away, too, the warmth of Kent’s bed alluring but not enough to distract him from unfolded washing. 

‘Sorry about that,’ he begins, apologetic although Kent looks at him with a soft sort of exasperation. ‘The cupboard at the end of the hall, second shelf from the top.’

Sarala matches the look but pairs it with a well-meaning grin. ‘No, you’re fine. Probably saved us from tripping over the basket, anyway.’

‘You’d be surprised how many times that’s happened,’ Kent says, exchanging a comically dark look with Sarala. 

She bursts into a gentle crescendo of laughter and has to avert her gaze when he starts too.

‘Ta,’ she says, her attention back on Chandler as she turns to leave. ‘You’re much more useful than the last fella.’ 

Chandler feels as if she’s just thrown a bucket of water over his head. The last fella? There must be. He’s an idiot for not thinking about it. It shouldn’t be any sort of surprise. But it is as she disappears from view, both he and Kent watching her go with similar still expressions.

It shouldn’t bother him, should  it? It doesn’t. Not really. Not in theory. But he doesn’t _know_. Should he know? Probably not. He still wants to, though. 

Chandler tries to end the train of thought by picking up his tea and burying his face in it. When that doesn’t work he turns back to the paper and stares at a terrible picture of Boris Johnson and his ridiculous hair. He’s sure his silence won’t go unnoticed even though they’re used to such quietness but he keeps his mouth shut, mind moving at such a speed he can’t imagine any sort of effective filter could keep up.

Christ. Why does he have to be like this?

He gets halfway though a convoluted article on whatever bit of the economy they’re panicking about now before there’s a bit of a commotion as Kent chucks what’s left of his tea down the sink and grabs at his keys.

‘Come on then,’ he says, pulling his phone free of its charger. ‘Wouldn’t want to be too late.’

Chandler’s too slow to say anything before Kent’s tugging at the jacket he’d left on the back of the chair, and once he’s leant forward to let him pull it free Kent’s made a beeline for the front door. Chandler just stares into his tea for a moment before getting to his feet.

_Shit_. 

*

The evening comes slowly.

Chandler functions. He even functions well enough with Kent apart from a few quiet moments when he catches his thoughts slipping. It’s strange to think that their experience isn’t unique. It is to him, of course, there’s been nothing like this before for him but Kent’s slept with other people’s arms around him, Kent’s breathed hard against other people’s mouths, Kent’s pressed easy kisses to the side of other people’s throats. Hasn’t he?

He shakes each idea as it arises—or tries to, anyway. It only really works when there’s something else for him to focus on. Thankfully being a policeman also occasionally requires playing bureaucrat. Chandler’s still waiting for organizational phone calls when Miles stops by his office to say he and Riley are clocking off. It’s only early evening but the winter skies are already dark, and when Chandler watches them leave he can’t help but settle his gaze on the side of Kent’s face, the curve of his spine as he flicks through windows on his computer screen. Then Mansell coughs, splutters; Kent looks up and Chandler looks down. 

Chandler knows they’ll have to share a car at the end of the day; they were perfectly polite in the morning but he’s can’t quite shake the feeling that after a day’s worth of wondering the inside of his Range Rover will be stifling. He knows he’ll have to ask. He just can’t make himself do it, not when he’ll just wonder if Kent had looked at them the way he looks at him. 

Eventually Mansell clears off as well, his parting greeting a clap to Kent’s shoulder and a vague raised-voice goodbye to Chandler. He doesn’t expect a reply from either of them but does it anyway, laughing the entire way to the door. Once it slams behind him Kent lets out a short chuckle—disbelieving, affectionate—and Chandler smiles at the form he’s filling in.

They don’t say anything.

(But that’s never been a problem before, has it?)

The next time Chandler hears the dull trundle of one of the rolling chairs, he tenses. He knows it’s Kent, he can guess what’s coming. It’s even later, with seemingly even darker skies through the windows, and they’d look entirely natural there. Just two officers, two detectives discussing something or other before heading home.

‘Joe.’

Except they’re not.

Chandler squeezes his eyes shut, then caps and places his pen parallel to the edge of the paper. 

‘Joe.’ 

Kent’s voice is different—how does he do that? Insinuation wrapped in a few vowels, consonants. Softer without switching pitch. Chandler looks up to investigate it, see what form Kent’s face takes, see how far in he actually is. He can’t tell what reply he wants, either. 

Kent leans his shoulder against the doorjamb, hands in his pockets. He doesn’t try to avoid Chandler’s gaze; instead, he holds it.

It’s only when Chandler reluctantly turns back to the papers on his desk that Kent speaks. ‘You can ask. You’re not supposed to, but I don’t mind.’

How does he _do_ that? He can tell, he can always tell, Chandler wouldn’t be surprised to learn if he’s always been able to tell ever since the very first crime scene. He’s nursing a guilty weight in the base of his stomach—irrational, expansive guilt—and he doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t even raise his eyes to look at him, just watches the edge of Kent’s hand that he can see move in the periphery of a shrug.

‘About what Sarala said this morning,’ Kent continues, undeterred—as if they need reminding. ‘I know about you, after all.’

Kent pauses. Chandler doesn’t say anything but doesn’t make to move either. It’s tempting, sorely tempting, but just because Kent’s offering doesn’t mean he should ask. He knows it’s stupid, illogical; it’s some breed of an infantile precursor to jealousy. But, then again, there’s a part of him that wonders if he knew, if he _knew_ , then would it just get worse? Chandler swallows around the thought, tries to ignore it, but he accidently seeks out Kent’s gaze and finds it.

God. Doesn’t he find this terrifying? 

Kent gestures between them with a pointed finger. ‘Is this you asking, then?’

Chandler shifts in his seat, uncomfortable in the face of Kent’s inexplicable casualness, and clears his throat as his curiosity gets the better of him. ‘Yes.’

(Is that really what is is? _Curiosity_ feels too gentle, too innocent a word for this. Whatever this is.)

Kent grins and Chandler only just catches it as he drops his head to his hands, resigned. He drags his fingers over his face as Kent moves into the office proper and settles into one of the chairs.

‘No need to look so worried,’ he says with the shadow of a laugh on his lips. ‘It’s not some sort of Fifty Shades reenactment.’

Chandler doesn’t exactly know what he’s expecting. Or scared of, if anything. But he’d had all day to think about it and he’s got a virtual portfolio of possibilities now. He hasn’t quite made it to the bit where he ranks them by preference, though, and he’s glad of it. He doesn’t need that as well. Neither of them do.

Kent watches him from where he’s settled back in the chair. ‘It’s not much, really. You’d expect more from a modern youth.’

‘I don’t—’ Chandler balks. It’s all too close, he’s too aware. Kent’s too open. ‘I don’t need all your secrets.’ 

‘They’re not secrets.’ Kent replies simply and with quiet conviction; he leans forward and places a hand on the edge of the desk. ‘Especially not from you.’

Chandler’s tempted to stop him, to tell him that he really should be keeping them, _especially_ from him. But Kent’s gaze flicks away and he flexes his fist in his lap. For the first time Chandler wonders—or is it remembers?—that perhaps Kent has his own reasons for sitting there before him, offering up his past. 

‘There were couple of brief things at school. And when I say brief…’

Kent trails off and lets his fingers slip free of the bevelled edge, gesturing vaguely somewhere to their right. The implication’s clear: everything was casual. Which doesn’t surprise Chandler. Not really. It’s not that surprising a fact, even coming from Kent. Coming from any of them. (Except maybe Chandler himself—he hasn’t done anything casually for years. Especially not _that_.)

‘Then I joined the police, and you know what it’s like.’ He trails off again with a significant look, but ends with a noncommittal shrug. ‘I wasn’t very open about it. I met a couple of people outside of work, when I wasn’t in CID. We had good runs, but nothing that serious. Not really. It didn’t even feel like it at the time.’ Kent pauses to chuckle. ‘When I joined this team felt like much more of a serious commitment. Didn’t have much time for anything else.’

Chandler almost smiles at that. He can remember a similar point, when he’d come out of Hendon and found himself in the midst of investigations he couldn’t quite keep up with. 

‘Then there was you.’ An embarrassed smile breaks through but Kent diverts his gaze and wrings his hands together in his lap. ‘God, I’m incriminating myself here but it’s been you for ages.’

Chandler can’t help but let that smile through, the half-one that’s comfortable, the one that reminds him they’re just the same, really, aren’t they? They see every day what information can do to people—people kill, maim, terrorize over it—but they’re them. They deal in information. They can tell what’s relevant when others can’t. Chandler would like to think he could do that with his personal life as well, just this once.

‘But I was with someone then. Had been for the most of that year. That one—well, that one was serious. For a while. He finished with me, then—’

‘Finished with you?’

The words come out although Chandler had promised himself he wouldn’t interrupt. He just can’t imagine anyone wanting to get rid of Kent for any reason, romantic or otherwise.

Kent smiles, although something in it seems sad. ‘We’d been on the rocks for a while at that point. I knew it wasn’t going to last. Don’t know if he did, though. I was markedly more… pragmatic about it.’ He shrugs. ‘He was a good bloke. I was a bit of a bastard.’ 

Chandler shoots him an unimpressed look. Like he’s going to believe that.

‘I probably mentioned you too much,’ Kent says with a secondhand grin that prompts something unnerved in Chandler’s face. ‘No, I’m joking. I don’t think I’d really accepted it myself, then. But this job… it’s the sort of thing people like the sound of—detective this, detective that—but don’t like in practice. I bailed on too many arrangements. Though I suppose that says something about me, doesn’t it?’

Something tells Chandler that the question isn’t rhetorical. 

He sighs and leans back in his own chair, marginally more relaxed now they’ve made it this far. ‘If it does, then I’m in the same boat.’ 

The returning smile’s full this time, but self-concious. ‘We are having this conversation in a deserted incident room well after hours.’

Chandler huffs in a short shot of disquiet laughter; they can’t fight the truth, can they? Kent just shrugs and turns back to his hands, disentangling them and splaying his fingers across his thighs.

‘And there was the striping,’ he begins, voice clipped, ‘and that put paid to much else.’

Chandler frowns then—or at least, he must do, because his face does something unconscious and Kent looks at him with a degree of incredulity.

‘It doesn’t exactly make you confident does it?’

No. Chandler supposes it doesn’t. Of course not.

‘And that’s it.’ 

(It’s a useless thing to say. It doesn’t help either of them. It ignores what Chandler suspects Kent just tried to tell him but it’s the only thing he can seem to get out of his mouth.)

‘That’s it.’ Kent manages a smile that Chandler knows is entirely for his benefit. ‘Nothing too shocking, hmm?’ 

Chandler smiles and finds himself chuckling in relief at the mere fact they’ve had the conversation and he feels fine, possibly even better than before. Kent continues to smile with him for a moment, though the emotion falls away from his face as he massages his wrist with the fingers of the other hand. 

‘Now it’s my turn to ask questions.’

The anxiety rushes back to him, heavier for being both imminent and unexpected.

Kent takes a shallow attempt at a steadying breath, and then: ‘Why haven’t you mentioned them?’

‘Who?’

‘My scars.’

( _Oh_.)

Chandler’s confused, as first, because he’s always just taken Kent as he is and not really noticed. He does when he can’t help it, when he’s pressed to Kent’s damp back or when his pajama trousers sit a bit low, but even then. It’s just observation. Nothing more, except for the few times in the depths of night he’s had to screw up his eyes against the memories, the recollection of Kent’s face in the hospital and in the incident room when Chandler had put his foot in it. Chandler usually just presses closer, savouring the way Kent will bundle them together in his sleep, and tries to remember to be better to him.

‘I didn’t think you wanted me to. You never mention them.’ Chandler knows he’s floundering, deflecting blame, and he fiddles with the alignment of the files as he speaks. It’s a terrible distraction technique that doesn’t work; he ends up looking to Kent’s face anyway. ‘Do you want me to?’

‘I don’t know. I just wondered—’

(Chandler can’t bear whatever it is in Kent’s voice. He doesn’t understand it, how it can change so much, but when it morphs into this he hates it. It’s irrationality embodied but he always has. Even before all of this. Despite all of this.) 

‘What? What I think of them?’ He hates to interrupt but he’s set a precedent already, hasn’t he? ‘Kent, you know they don’t bother me, don’t you?’

He doesn’t respond. Instead he sits there and looks dubious, and why would he do anything different? Chandler’s not given him any reason to, has he?

‘Kent, listen to me,’ Chandler begins, scrabbling for some sort of mental traction and hoping that he can get these words out without mangling their meaning. ‘If I feel anything about them, it’s guilt, because I sent you to get them and then I called you a liar and a traitor when I should have trusted you. I— _God_ —I made a terrible situation much worse. I insulted you on all possible levels, because you are one of the best, most loyal, most hardworking officers I have had the pleasure of working with. So, I suppose I haven’t mentioned them because they hurt me, too. Not because of any problem I have with things being just so, but because they hurt you and I didn’t—I couldn’t—’

He loses track of what tense they’re speaking in now; they’re all at once and none at all, aren’t they?

‘—I _can’t_ help. Because I was a part of that pain and that won’t ever go away.’

Kent watches him as he trails off, eyes raised to meet his even as his head’s bowed. ‘You blame yourself.’

Chandler lets out a pent-up sigh. ‘I blame a lot of people, including myself.’

‘I don’t blame you.’ Kent pauses as he watches Chandler’s face; he sounds comfortable enough with his opinion but Chandler can’t believe it, not fully. ‘I did, I think, at the time—for about half an hour. But I don’t.' 

‘You’re a better man than me, then,’ Chandler replies, returning a hand to his brow and resigning himself to the unfathomable response.

‘I wouldn’t be so sure about that,’ Kent says, his sad smile replaced with something much more mischievous. ‘I’m certain Skip would say we’re as bad as each other.’

Chandler acquiesces to the statement with raised brows and a tentative smile; it’s meant as a joke, but it’s true, Miles would say that. Even though he doesn’t know. It’s true either way. 

Kent watches him through the pause, worrying his lower lip between his teeth before he speaks in a hushed almost-whisper. ‘I’d kiss you now, if we weren’t at the station.’

This time Chandler does huff out an honest laugh, because he can’t imagine why. ‘That’s a generous thought.’ 

‘Sir.’

Chandler suppresses a shudder; Kent’s mercurial voice, manipulated, suggestive, low and almost a growl with that slow curved smile.

‘Stop that.’

(No. Don’t.)

Kent’s smile doesn’t go, it settles around the edges of his mouth and it takes Chandler a moment to stop looking at it as Kent lets his hands fall apart and studies his watch. 

‘Are you going home tonight?’

Chandler’s surprised that he honestly hasn’t given it much thought. He’s been preoccupied all day—and he should probably double check all the filing he’s done, just to be sure—but there’s no reason he shouldn’t. They’ve got no case on, there’s nothing to keep him tied to his desk but there doesn’t always have to be, so it’s still a valid question. He glances at his own watch, winces at the time, then turns back to the incessant files that still cover the corner of his desk. When they don’t answer him he turns back to Kent, who’s trying not to look hopeful but failing. Chandler can see it around the edges. It’s warm, familiar. It makes him _want_ to go home. 

He breathes out through his nose and says, ‘I suppose I should.’ 

Kent’s face breaks out into his lopsided smile. ‘Fancy some company?’

‘You know I always fancy yours.’ 

(There’s a slight lilt in Chandler’s movements, because as much as that’s true he hasn’t ever expected to say it out loud.)

‘That’s because you fancy me, sir,’ Kent quips, wrinkling his nose as they both get to their feet. 

‘Stop it!’

Kent grins. ‘You’re blushing.’

Chandler doesn’t need to be told twice. He can feel the heat in his face already. ‘You’re awful.’ 

‘I do try.' 

*

It takes most of Kent’s self control not to fist his hands in the front of Chandler’s coat as they walk through the corridors of his building. They avoid each other’s reflected gazes but bump shoulders in the mirrored lift, and the proprietary hand Chandler lays on the small of his back for a moment while they exit sends a gentle, pleased shiver up Kent’s spine.

He’s immensely relieved his gamble worked. He’d known what it was that was making Chandler behave oddly. Even Mansell had noticed and mentioned it to Kent over the lunch hour, which meant that Skip and Riley had as well but they just hadn’t said anything. Kent had just watched him toying with it, fighting with it behind a front of files and wondered exactly what to do between vaguely stern texts to Sarala. There was really only one option in the end, unless he was just willing to wait and see if it wore off (which, with Chandler, wasn’t likely). So he’d done it as soon as he could muster the courage and his heart had been in his throat until Chandler smiled at him. Not the false one he brings out occasionally when he’s not managing; the proper one. _His_ one.

Kent gets another as Chandler unlocks his front door and pushes it in with his shoulder.

It’s still distinctly thrilling to see him pleased.

If that’s even what he is. It could just be relief.

That’s a nice change, too.

He shrugs off his coat as Chandler walks further through, further into the creeping darkness that he illuminates one switch at a time. Kent toes his shoes off when Chandler returns with his coat in one hand and his keys in the other. It’s an odd ritual but it’s familiar, and Kent doesn’t resist the urge to lean into Chandler as he walks past. He doesn’t miss the slight slowdown of his movements either, the softening of stiffness.

(It’s as if he needs reminding that he can do it. Can ask for it.)

‘Dinner?’ Chandler asks as he follows, the inflection betraying a slight unease with the suggestion—as if it’s a question he doesn’t quite have an answer to.

Kent turns to look at him and finds he doesn’t, either. There’s something about him, _something_ , something he can keep hidden everywhere else. He seems… stripped back here, in the warm light of his living room and the gentle tick of the heating. Chandler cocks his head slightly, crooks an eyebrow, his face pink from the wind though they’d barely been out in it for ten minutes. It’s incongruous once the coat and scarf’s gone, once all the external finery’s been stripped back to a waistcoat and shirt. Kent wets his lips and approaches, smothering an amused smile as Chandler’s face betrays confusion.

‘What—?’

Kent reaches up and places his palm against the side of Chandler’s neck. The the coolness of his skin’s contradictory to its flush.

'I did promise,’ he murmurs with a gentle tug, and he can see realisation dawn on Chandler’s features.

He set his mouth against Chandler’s, his haste in getting there dissolving as the taller man responds with a tentative caress of his tongue.

The kiss turns unhurried and unending, a loop. They so rarely have time for this sort of luxurious slowness, gentle meandering through each other's mouths, bodies. It’s not just their physicality, either; they haven’t a minute to spare for wandering thoughts, although they do appear. They just can’t linger with them as they can now, with their hands curling into skin-warmed fabric and breaths intermingling in the outward silence. Kent even savours the slight soreness in his neck from tilting his head upwards as Chandler pulls away and rests their foreheads together. 

He looks confused, even though they’ve kissed a thousand times before, even though they’ve done so much more.

‘What was that for?’

Kent can’t believe he still has to ask. As far as he’s concerned, it’s painfully obvious. 

He presses his face to the crook of Chandler’s neck, the skin cool ahead his forehead and tongue, instead of responding. This man can say things—heart-wrenching, tender things—and have absolutely no idea. Kent can’t trust himself to manipulate words in the same way even when he wants to, even when he knows what he wants to say and how. There’s a degree of distrust in his own mind that follows him about. He can’t believe that the words would make their way from his brain out of his mouth without some degree of interference from another part of him, the bit that can’t help but shoving its foot in its mouth.

What was that kiss for?

Everything. 

But Kent doesn’t say. He breathes, just breathes with his mouth resting against skin until Chandler’s warm and soft and needy, until Kent can feel the goosebumps rise across skin as he presses the long-promised kiss to Chandler’s ear. Perhaps he understands, on some level. Perhaps his body does even if his conscious mind doesn’t. It’s in there, somewhere, in the depths and shallows of Chandler’s brain. Maybe it’s in the low vibration as Chandler hums while Kent moves his mouth along his jawline, maybe it’s in the way his own breaths don’t seem to be gathering enough oxygen for his lungs, maybe it’s in all of it. 

And, in that moment, Kent doesn’t really mind if he knows.

Because it must be there if Chandler can let him in, let him snake his hand across Chandler’s shoulders and grasp the back of his neck, let his own eyes glow with anticipation as Kent pulls him close and presses a commanding kiss to his mouth that quickly turns clumsy, enthusiastic.

One of Chandler’s hands scoops up the back of Kent’s head, fingers threading through his hair. Kent moans high in his throat and pulls at the fabric over Chandler’s stomach, trying for traction and grip. He doesn’t always get it, dragging his knuckles over the muscles that twitch under the glancing touch, but when he does Chandler understands his meaning and follows his step. It’s times like these when Chandler’s minimalism comes in handy; the back of Kent’s knees don’t clip any unruly furniture and he can maneuver them into the nearest armchair with something close to ease without really diverting his attention from the heat of Chandler’s mouth against his.

Sitting down’s a bit more complicated, a bit more of a tumble, but with they recover smoothy enough and Kent straddles Chandler’s lap, both hands resting on either side of his neck until he overbalances and grips at the chair, swearing under his breath. Chandler huffs, laughs, and Kent can feel the movement along his chest and he can’t not smile before pressing their mouths together again. He licks softly at the insides of Chandler's mouth, tasting his tongue and tracing over his teeth, as they settle and readjust their balance. Chandler sits back, slopes his spine along the incline of the chair and urges Kent further onto his lap with his free hand.

They go about this all the wrong way, in all the wrong directions and in all the wrong order. But they always have, haven’t they, so in the grand scheme of things Chandler’s hands pulling at the cotton of Kent’s shirt before doing anything about his jacket isn’t that out of place. Kent’s almost forgotten he still had it on but encourages him anyway with a soft moan and a slight circle of his hips. He’s not sure if it’s that or the moment Chandler can flatten his palm on the hot skin of his back that prompts the gasp, the intake of breath that Kent steals into his mouth. 

The coolness fades the longer Chandler’s fingers trail across his skin but Kent follows the feeling anyway, smiling as he eases away to mouth the hinge of Chandler’s jaw, the crook of his shoulder, the spots he knows now and he relishes the hitch in Chandler’s movements he can half control, the stuttering pauses he can instigate. Its only when Chandler’s touch finds the trail of raised skin, the line of scar tissue that’s a bit out of alignment with the rest, that Kent freezes. He hasn’t thought about it before. 

But then again, neither has Chandler, has he?

‘Why don’t you mention them?’ Chandler asks, slightly breathless, as Kent shudders above him.

‘I try to ignore their existence as much as possible,’ Kent mutters, pressing his face to the suited shoulder. 

Chandler’s quick to move his hand, though Kent catches it with his.

He draws back so that he can look him in the eye properly, fingers still wrapped around Chandler’s wrist. ‘That doesn’t mean you have to.’

The look he gets betrays the disbelief, the concern even amidst the want. ‘If it makes you feel uncomfortable—’

‘Funnily enough,’ Kent says, almost surprised with the realisation as he lowers his mouth to Chandler’s, ‘with you, it doesn’t.’

Chandler smiles under Kent’s kiss. ‘Carry on as normal, then?’

‘Please.’

With the breathed word Chandler presses close and licks into him, drawing out the whimpers Kent’s been trying to keep to himself. So he gives over, lets himself go, trusts in him like he always has. His hands work the knot of Chandler’s tie, the buttons on his waistcoat, his shirt, and he doesn’t even have to think about it anymore because this, _this_ , is what they do. The skin he uncovers is warm, warmer than the bits of him that were out in the cold, and Kent presses his fingers to the emanating heat, its promise, as Chandler leans forward to free his wrists as he shrugs out of the fabric. The shirt stays splayed out on the chair behind him, the arms outstretched as Chandler reaches up to cup Kent’s face between his hands and pull him closer in.

(As if he wouldn’t want to.)

He thumbs at the edges of Chandler’s jaw until he can’t breathe anymore, until they’ve fallen too far in to get back out again and he can only just about pull away. Even that doesn’t work the first time, for either of them, as they meet halfway for kisses intermingled with canine.

Kent’s fumbling hand produces a condom from the inside pocket of his jacket; even now he’s shaking, just a bit, as Chandler’s hands slide across his sides in solid lines, palms pressing into his hips as he sits back. His breaths either rattle through his lungs reminiscent of a shudder or come too hard and too heavy through his nose.

Chandler looks up at him, smirking with a reddened mouth. ‘You carry them around now?’

Kent grins as he holds the packet between his teeth and shrugs off his jacket. Chandler’s eyes follow every movement, the humour slowly receding from his mouth in favour of something much more private as Kent discards the tailoring on the arm of the sofa. It’s when he works his tie loose that it comes back with a wicked edge and Chandler’s fingers transfer their attentions to Kent’s shirt. 

The tie ends up on the coffee table, and Kent places the foil on the arm of the chair as he shucks the last layer of fabric down his arms with a curved mischievous smile. ‘You never know who you’re going to run into.’

Chandler chuckles and presses his mouth to Kent’s sternum and the hollow of his throat as the shirt follows the way of the jacket.

Kent just fumbles for Chandler's belt and feels him whimper.

*

The beeping of the unfamiliar alarm steals the depth from Chandler’s sleep, but it’s the ensuing scuffling and removal of the warm weight tucked against his side that troubles him into wakefulness. His limbs don’t want to cooperate, initially tangling in the sheets, but with an ungainly grunt he manages to twist his torso enough so that he can glance over his shoulder. The pillows should have still been quietly dark at this hour of the winter morning; in fact, there wasn’t any evidence from the direction of the thick blackout curtains that would suggest otherwise. Still Chandler squints, blinking reflexively against the bright light that accosts his sleep-dialated pupils. 

‘Sorry,’ Kent says, voice rough with disuse. ‘I never got chance to turn the brightness down.’

It takes Chandler a moment to realise he’s talking about his phone. He grunts a response—that’s about as far as he can get when he’s been awake for all of two minutes. His bedroom slowly comes into focus as they lie in the relative darkness, and when he can see a bit further than the end of his nose, Chandler reaches out from under the warm duvet to grasp for his watch. It takes him a bit longer than it normally would to decipher the dials, but he wrinkles his nose when he does.

‘It’s five in the morning.’

Kent hums in agreement, and the vibration travels through the innersprings. ‘The first train’s in half an hour.’

Chandler doesn’t answer. He knows realistically that they have to go through the motions, and Kent definitely can’t come into work wearing the same suit as yesterday, but it still makes something churn low in his stomach. At first he’d just thought it was something in his subconscious reminding him that they were breaking all the rules, because it was really the only time he felt illicit. They were so _comfortable_ when they weren’t being reminded that they were shagging in secret. Even so, Chandler soon realised that that wasn’t really it. He can’t be bothered worrying about the rulebook while Kent’s head is resting on his spare pillow. It’s the realisation that it soon wouldn’t be that bothers him.

He turns to face the man in question, shifting onto his back as he does so. Kent’s fingers glide over the screen, the pads of his fingers following familiar patterns. Chandler recognizes it; it’s familiar to all policemen, waking up and checking all possible avenues for new information—half wishing for something to have been called in overnight, half feeling guilty for hoping to be faced with death.

Kent’s eyes flick from one side to the other, reading whatever it was that he’d found. Chandler’s linger on Kent’s face, pale against the dark sheets, and trail along the curve of his jaw as he tucks his chin close to his chest. Even then, messy-haired and wide-eyed and illuminated by the worst possible light source, when he turns his head to meet Chandler’s gaze with a wide smile, he’s beautiful. 

Chandler wonders if he knows.

‘Come here,’ he says, the words gravelly in the waning darkness.

Kent frowns at him. ‘What?’

A smile tugs at Chandler’s lips as he heaves himself up on one arm and crawls on top of Kent, one hand teasing the phone from the other man’s grip before sliding it onto the bedside table. Kent lets him do it, even though he keeps his frown until he cocks an eyebrow at Chandler’s sleep-ruffled hair. It doesn’t last though, though, as Chandler lowers his mouth to the corner of Kent’s and he responds extravagantly. They part for a moment’s air, and Chandler leans his chin into the sloping bone of Kent’s shoulder as he trails his mouth across his jaw, tongue warm against skin.

‘Stay for a bit,’ he murmurs, in between kisses.

There’s a pause that hangs in the air while Chandler measures his heartbeat with his mouth pressed against the crook of Kent’s jaw.

‘I’ll be late,’ Kent says, a weak protest that he doesn’t really mean. He’s already threaded the fingers of one hand through Chandler’s hair.

Chandler grins against the shell of Kent’s ear. ‘I won’t mind.’

Kent laughs as he hitches his leg against Chandler’s side, and he angles Chandler’s head so he can kiss the smirk off his face. Both of them know that neither of them will be late—the shift doesn’t start until eight, at the very earliest, when they don’t have any active cases or call-ins. Chandler might have gone in earlier if Kent hadn’t been in his bed, it’s true, but he doesn’t really need to when Kent’s wrapping an arm around his shoulders and he smells like _his_ bed, like _his_ flat, like _his_ skin. Chandler can’t think of much else when Kent arches into the curve of his body and nips at his bottom lip. Kent’s palm lies heavy on the small of Chandler’s back, and the gentle pressure sets his skin alight with each nudge of their hips.

Blunt nails slip over his skin as Kent moans into his mouth and grips at the base of Chandler’s ribs, his fingers pushing the duvet further down the length of their bodies. Chandler opens his eyes just in time to see Kent’s flutter closed, and hums as he nudges Kent’s chin back with his nose in order to press his mouth to the bed-warmed skin of Kent’s neck. There’s something about feeling him swallow that makes Chandler’s chest tighten, and he braces himself on one arm so the other hand can remind him how solid Kent is, how far away from fragile they are. 

Kent’s mobile beeps somewhere to the right of their heads, buzzing against the wood for a moment before falling silent.

‘Ignore it,’ Kent gasps, and a hand runs over the back of Chandler’s neck as he suckles the skin behind Kent’s ear. 

Chandler chuckles. ‘You’ve changed your tune.’

‘That’s the first time you noticed?’ Kent asks, wrapping a leg around Chandler’s waist to underline his point.

His hips roll of their own accord then, and he seeks out Kent’s smiling mouth with his own as he slides a hand under the soft cotton of Kent’s pyjama top. Chandler revels in the way the younger man’s muscles twitch as he runs his fingers low across his stomach, and the way it makes Kent clutch at his back to hold him closer. The phone vibrates again, seemingly more insistently, and Chandler raises his head from Kent’s to shoot it an uneasy glance.

‘It could be work,’ he says,

Kent’s lips twitch into a curved grin against Chandler’s jugular. ‘It’s not.’

‘How can you tell?’

‘Different beep.’ The words form blurry shapes against his collarbone, Kent’s breaths ghosting over where he’s kissed.

‘Oh,’ Chandler says, and words fail him as Kent runs his tongue over the length of his clavicle. ‘Right, then.’ 

Kent’s lips twitch into a smile as he mouths at the line of Chandler’s neck, the slope of his shoulder, the flat bone of his sternum and licks into the indentations between his ribs. Before he can go much further, slink down Chandler’s body as he’s prone to do, Chandler catches his jaw with a gentle hand and draws him back for a slight, closed-mouth kiss.

‘Let me,’ he murmurs, lips dragging across Kent’s with the hushed tone. 

Kent shivers as the words sink in and he leans forward coaxed by Chandler’s hand, his fingers, his kiss to the last bit of skin at his throat before his top’s pulled over his head. Neither of them notice where it goes once it leaves their possession.

Chandler takes pleasure instead from Kent’s reactions, the trail of red marks he litters across Kent’s collarbone, the way Kent’s fingers dig into his shoulder if he swipes the flat of his tongue over a taut nipple, the way Kent drags him back when he wants to kiss him, the intoxicating mixture of a groan and a sigh that comes out of Kent’s lungs when Chandler’s larger hands tilt his hips to just the right angle, the way Kent shudders if Chandler drags his fingers along the line of his thigh and hitches it higher, the way Kent rolls back onto his tailbone and moans into Chandler’s mouth. Kent rocks against him, sucking on his tongue in time with the roll of his hips. Chandler breaks the kiss on an uncontrolled groan, and presses his face to Kent’s temple, breathless.

Kent pushes his hands past the waistband of Chandler’s pajamas, pulling his hips flush against his own. The contact wrings another moan out of Chandler’s mouth, another press of lips to whichever bit of Kent’s skin is closest.

‘Christ—' 

‘You started it,’ Kent says, half-gasp and half-grin against Chandler’s forehead.

Chandler finds a smile somewhere in the haze of heat and gives it to him; he might as well, Kent’s the only one who’s going to get them at all, and he takes them from him with a graze of mouths that goes deeper than before. If that’s even possible. (Chandler feels like it is.) 

He wants that: depth. He’s never felt as if he’s been allowed to have it before, but with Kent pressing his tongue to the top of Chandler’s mouth and his leg bent around Chandler’s hip, he’s never wanted to try and find it quite so much. Kent whimpers as Chandler splays his hand over his hip, lifts and bundles a pillow beneath Kent’s tailbone, adjusting the angle, and catches the waistband as his hands trail away. He pulls the fabric with him and Kent wriggles out of them as he cants upwards, searching for their previous closeness. He finds it and bites down on his bottom lip, his thumbs searching out Chandler’s waist and doing the same as he’d done a moment before. Chandler leans back to oblige, no matter how ungainly it is; Kent follows the best he can and sucks an almost-painful kiss onto the side of his neck as he pulls them both back down, kicking the discarded pajamas to the bottom depths of the duvet.

Kent worries the skin of Chandler’s shoulder between his teeth as Chandler leans towards the bedside table; his fingers search out the bottle and box he knows are there, now, new but already well-thumbed. The lubricant on its own is the one thing he’s not as familiar with at this point: Kent had bought it, probably brought it with him one of the first times and just left it in the drawer for convenience’s sake. Chandler hadn’t known where to look when he’d first noticed in the light of day. He grasps at the bottle now, determined and curious.

The darkness can’t dull the spark in Kent’s eyes as Chandler turns back to him, rakes his gaze over the chest and stomach that lay flat before him. The small nips and patches that look darkened and damp even in the low morning light. He wrestles down a groan, a possessive temptation to leave something more permanent on the soft skin behind Kent’s ear, and bends to cover Kent’s lips with his own. 

‘Are you—?’ he murmurs when he pulls back.

Kent’s eyes flick from Chandler’s face to his hand. ‘It’s all right—’

‘Shall I?’

He frowns out of lack of comprehension rather than displeasure. ‘You—you don’t have to—’

Chandler swallows. ‘I want to.’

‘Joe.’

His name comes out more as a hushed exhalation than an actual address. 

It’s true. He wouldn’t have thought it if anyone had suggested it before they’d started up, but it’s true. He’s wondered for a while, really _wondered_ , but it was that night during that last big case that had done it—the one where he’d realised Kent knew so much more about himself than he did and it had made Chandler desperate to know. So much so he’d even done some research on his phone, careful to erase all the search history before going into work. That had got him the vague basics. Now’s just as good a time as any to start—it won’t be too difficult, he won’t need much with what they’ve been up to in the past forty-eight hours. But Chandler wants to try.

Kent leans towards Chandler, crashes a bit but kisses him with an unleashed eagerness, a wire-thin heat sliding between them in the slippery contact. He moans at Chandler’s reciprocation, the sound caught under Chandler’s tongue, but he loses the kiss caught up in his own body’s distraction in the anticipation. 

He rests his forehead against Kent’s and whispers, ‘Now?’

Kent licks his lips and nods, the kiss he presses to the corner of Chandler’s mouth more of a twitch that anything else. Chandler swallows—it’s definitely not a gulp—and flicks the cap between his thumb and forefinger open. He coats his fingers with the cool gel, pauses with soft touches to Kent’s stomach as he waits for it to warm. It can’t take long, he feels feverish enough as it is, but even when he feels that it’s been long enough he still turns back to Kent’s wanting gaze. 

‘All right?’ 

‘Yes,’ Kent says with a lopsided smile and a hand pressed to Chandler’s chest. ‘Please.’

He presses a finger inside; Kent croons his name. Encouraged and intrigued, Chandler curves blindly; soft, slow, careful. Recedes then presses deeper, experimental. Kent swears under his breath and breathes out in one long stretch through his nose, prompting a sudden stop in Chandler’s movement until he gasps out his name and grasps his forearm in an asking grip. 

Kent shifts and circles his hips, seeking Chandler out and when he stills with a frustrated moan, Chandler somehow swallows down the odd mixture of arousal and anxiety and eases in a second finger. Kent’s eyes flutter closed as he bites down on his lower lip; Chandler fears that he’s gone too far until Kent’s mouth twitches into a smile, pleasure-riddled and debauched. 

Chandler has to ask. ‘Are you all right?’

‘More than.’ Kent grins up at him, his edges hazy. Chandler’s face mustn’t change because Kent focuses a bit and flexes his fingers, kneads the pads into Chandler’s bicep.  ‘You’re doing fine.’

It’s then that Chandler must find the right place, because Kent goes slack-jawed. His eyes glaze over and he gasps, his grip tightening so far to lose his purchase before scrabbling against Chandler’s skin.

Kent makes a little keening noise in the back of his throat. ‘Christ—’

‘Are you—’

‘ _Yes_.’

Kent almost hisses the word, one hand clasping at the loosening sheets at his side and the other flattening against Chandler’s skin in a renewed grip. Chandler brushes his finger again, a gentle bend and Kent whimpers; the sound makes something in him twitch, something protective and predatory all at once. It half scares him. 

‘Joe—please—’ The hand that’s migrated to the back of Chandler’s head tightens marginally in his hair. ‘Enough—’

The heel Kent presses into the back of Chandler’s thigh is explanation enough. He withdraws his fingers with a calculated gentleness that doesn’t mitigate the mourning sound Kent makes with the loss; he presses his mouth to the plane of Kent’s stomach that’s closest and breathes for a moment, pants in time with the pulse against his tongue to stop him from getting ahead of himself. Kent whines, writhes under him and removes his hands from Chandler’s skin to tear at the foil packet they’ve left on the bedside table.

Chandler takes the hint—he’s stalling, for God knows what reason, he doesn’t want to—and by the time he’s able to construct another coherent thought his hands are slippery cool against Kent’s hips and he’s entering into a satisfying heat that removes all the air from his lungs.

Chandler sinks in; his belly presses Kent’s. 

‘Oh, dear God—’

Kent sounds broken like this; he always does, it always gives Chandler reason to pause, but Kent arches his neck back and Chandler can see his pulse, bounding and strong.  The noise that follows is slow, throaty, and Chandler draws the sound out with a gradual roll of his hips until he can’t help but join in. They slip away a little bit at a time, with each languorous thrust and pull, and Kent pulls Chandler close with the grip of one shaking hand. It slows them down, makes Chandler erratic, but he holds him close and they breathe the same air—the little of it they can gather. Kent places his lips to Chandler’s jaw, kiss-close but doesn’t touch, lost in the distraction of low moans until they morph somehow into Chandler’s name.

There’s something desperate, wanting about the sound and Chandler knows; he runs a hand down Kent’s chest and wraps his palm around his cock in a familiar grasp, using the momentum of movement and a twist of his wrist. Kent whimpers high in his throat and grips harder at the back of Chandler’s neck, claws as the soft skin and hairline. Chandler closes his eyes against the coming wave, the one that normally creeps up on him without warning but he can feel the slow swell now, with Kent’s mouth working against his as slowly as their hips and hands.

Kent’s closer—the pitch changes in his chest and he abandon’s Chandler’s kisses in favour of throwing his head back against the pillow, back bowed upwards. Chandler licks at his neck, open mouthed against the line of his throat, until he feels Kent pulse in his hand with a cry that’s on just the right side of painful, and the sensation goes straight through to his core. One or two more thrusts and he’s there, spilling into Kent as a groan weaves its way between the skin of Kent’s shoulder and the rucked sheets. 

The darkness is thinner as they pant into the air beside each other’s head, though whether that’s the fault of the sun or acclimatization is unclear. Chandler’s limp and pliant, only barely managing to brace himself up on one arm, and the arm that Kent had wrapped around his shoulders shifts until he’s nestled his neck into the crook of his elbow. Chandler shifts closer—as close as he can without smothering Kent, as in the moment it feels like it’s a real possibility—and presses his nose to the hinge of Kent’s jaw.

‘I’m not going to be able to see straight.’ Kent’s voice is rough, almost hoarse, although there’s humour there.

Chandler huffs a breathless laugh from where he’s let his forehead drop to the pillow. ‘I don’t think it’ll affect your work.’

(God, is he really saying this while he’s still _inside_ him? Apparently.)

Kent scoffs and brings his hand to the juncture of Chandler’s skull and neck, maneuvering until it’s possible to press their mouths together, to kiss him deeply, delicately, licking softly against Chandler’s tongue. It’s oddly reassuring, and something that something not that far away from a purr escapes Chandler’s chest as Kent strokes through his hair. 

‘Wait—’ Kent says, stilted as he’s still trying to catch his breath. ‘Wait. Don’t move, for a moment.’

Chandler’s hyperaware of the stickiness rapidly drying between them, and Kent must be able to tell because he adds, ‘Not for long, just…’ before trailing off in favour of running his palms along the length of Chandler’s back, fingers tracing the swells of muscle and bone they know so well, now. Chandler kisses the crook of Kent’s neck, working his way to his hairline as the rise and fall of their chests slows.

Kent smiles a closed-mouth smile as he meets Chandler’s gaze, and runs a gentle hand through the front of the taller man’s hair. ‘All right, then.’

There’s a part of him in that moment that’s just as reluctant as Kent, but Chandler’s already conscious of the fact they do actually have to work a shift today and he’s wobbly enough to slow him down considerably. He pulls out and sighs; Kent presses a dry kiss to the side of his face before he heaves himself off the younger man.

‘I’m going to have a shower.’

It’s an invitation. It generally is, if he announces it. 

Kent looks up at him as he settles on the edge of the bed, eyes moving slowly as he enjoys the last moments of the aftermath. ‘I’d best not. If I did that, then we _would_ be late. And it’s probably best if I don’t keep coming in smelling like your flat all the time.’

Chandler nods. He knows, and even though he misses the combination of whatever it is Kent usually smells of and what he picks up in the hours spent in each others company, Kent’s right. 

‘A damp flannel wouldn’t go amiss, though,’ Kent continues as his eyes slide closed. ‘Before I go back to sleep and don’t bother coming in at all because your bed is so bloody welcoming.’

*

‘You’re looking well this morning.’

Chandler’s head snaps up from the case file on his desk to find Miles framed by the open doorway to his office.

‘Excuse me?’

‘I didn’t realise I spoke a foreign language,’ Miles says with a degree of terseness that suggests he hasn’t had a cup of tea yet. ‘I said, you’re looking well this morning.’ 

Chandler still doesn’t know what to say to that. He doesn’t feel any different, not really, though there’s something brewing that could end up as a smile as he watches Kent chat to Riley out of the corner of his eye, the silvery grey of her angora sweater a soft contrast to the black of his suit. 

‘Oh, um—thanks, I suppose.’

Miles peers at him from where he stands but doesn’t turn to follow his distracted gaze. ‘What’ve you changed, then?’

‘I don’t think I’ve changed anything,’ Chandler says, dismissing the possibility with a shrug as he turns back to the file. ‘I didn’t even have a particularly good night’s sleep.’ 

Except that’s a lie. He did. He was up early—or, rather, _they_ were up early—but the night itself had been better than most. Chandler had gone to bed after Kent, when they’d got that far, and been oddly soothed by the way that Kent stirred when he applied pressure to the empty side of the bed. By the time he’d settled horizontally Kent had wound an arm around his middle and pulled him close, kissed the crest of Chandler’s neck and shoulder, and pressed his nose to the line of his vertebral column as their breathing mellowed.

It may not have been the best night’s sleep he’s ever had, but it was certainly one of the nicest. 

Miles just scoffs and pushes off from where he’s leant a shoulder against the door jamb. ‘Well, whatever it is, keep doing it.’ 

Chandler doesn’t know whether to be amused or horrified that Miles just inadvertently told him to keep having sex with one of their DCs before work.

He’s not that adverse to the idea itself. 

After all, neither of them had been late.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 26 December 2013.
> 
> Thank you so much for bearing with me, and for continuing to read, enjoy, and leave such lovely feedback! It means so much to me. :) I hope this chapter's just as good as the last, and that the ones ahead don't disappoint!


	8. Chapter 8

Kent’s already awake when the front door goes.

Chandler’s not, and he only barely registers when Kent turns his head to peer at his own bedroom door and listen. He should only hear one set of steps, and definitely not voices; yet both sounds murmur through the quiet of the flat. He pushes up on one arm as far as Chandler’s grip will let him and tries to decipher the time on his watch. It’s about the right time for Sarala to be coming back from a night shift. But even so, she should be on her own. She generally is, at least at the point of entering the flat— _generally_ being the operative word. It’s not either of the others—they’d be much louder than this, and it’s far too early (or is it too late? Kent can never tell) for them anyway—so that’s odd. Very odd. 

He’s all but prepared to turn back to nudge his nose into the crook of Chandler’s neck and settle back into sleep, relatively confident in the conclusion that it’s just one of Sarala’s colleagues (it wouldn’t be the first time), when he recognizes the second muffled voice.

‘I was just looking for young Kent.’

Shit. Fucking buggering _shit_.

It has to be bloody Buchan, doesn’t it?

(He should have known this would happen sooner or later.) 

(Not that he’s ever had Buchan in his flat before.)

(Oh, _God_.)

Kent sits straight up, all of the comfortable warmth and slowness of almost-sleep gone. His heart feels like he might have a fractured rib by the end of the hour. Chandler’s arm slips heavily from his chest to low on his stomach, and the man grunts in a very un-Chandler like way. But that was one of the first things that Kent had learnt about him, from that very first night. Chandler in bed—asleep—and Chandler at work—awake—are very different creatures. When the poor bloke actually relaxes enough for deep sleep, it’s almost as if he goes too far.

‘Emerson?’

The fact that Kent can hear Sarala actually carrying on a conversation with Ed effectively overrides any annoyance over Chandler’s use of his first name. It’s not as bad coming from him, anyway, and it’s more of a snuffle of consonants and vowels than anything else so Kent just brushes his fingers over Chandler’s mouth.

‘Shh.’

‘What a good idea,’ Chandler grumbles, exhaling through his nose as he readjusts the pillow. 

Kent can’t resist rolling his eyes. ‘I’m not kidding.’

‘Mmm?’

He lets his hand rest on the curved edge of Chandler’s shoulder. ‘There’s someone else here.’

‘You have flatmates,’ Chandler says, muttering into the pillowcase.

‘No, I think it’s—’ Kent breaks off; it’s useless trying to explain it to him in this state, and the more they lie there talking the more likely is is that they might be overheard. ‘Just—just stay here.’

Chandler makes another assenting sound and lets Kent disentangle himself from the mixture of sheets and limbs. Kent swallows down a vague panic as he pulls a t-shirt over his head. He’s got no idea how they’re supposed to get away with this. Of course it should be simple enough, if Chandler says put (and it seems like he will) while Ed decidedly doesn’t decide to have a poke around Kent’s bedroom. Which is so far away from the realm of reality that Kent doesn’t even be wasting time thinking about it, but as he slips into the hall and shuts the door behind him it feels as if his mere appearance in his own flat spells out the situation.

Kent wonders if this is how their suspects feel, in the last moments, but shakes the thought away from his mind as he turns towards where the sound of conversation’s coming from. Ed’s never been one to give up easily, after all.

Even so, it’s Sarala that spots him first. She looks mildly dazed and gestures in his direction with a slightly desperate glance when he rounds the corner, ruffling the back of his hair with one hand and trying to look as if he’s surprised to find them there.

‘Oh, here he is.’

(He gives her the corner of a warm smile, because no one who doesn’t work with him should be accosted by Ed and his endless enthusiasm at this time in the morning without eight hours of sleep behind them.)

Ed’s in the same jumper and shirt as yesterday and looks far too bright for someone who’s apparently just pulled an all-nighter. He turns to Kent with an enthusiastic glance that suggests the file and briefcase he’s got with him aren’t just for casual reading.

Sarala wipes at some crumbs next to the toaster and points between them with her free hand. ‘Kent, Edward Buchan.’ 

‘Yes, I can see that.’ He crooks a brow. ‘What brings you _here_ , of all places, Ed?’ 

He’s unfazed, as he always is. ‘I was looking for Joe, actually.’

‘The boss?’ Kent’s heart leaps into his throat, sword at the ready. ‘No, I left him working last night.’ 

(Which is half-true. At a stretch.)

Ed sighs and glances down at the file in his hand, a lingering gaze lost in there somewhere. ‘That’s what I thought, if I’m perfectly honest.’

‘Why would you expect to find him here?’ Kent asks, continuing just for the sake of filling time. The sooner they realise whatever mission Ed’s on is either superfluous or useless, the sooner he can go home and Kent can bundle Chandler back into a suit. That isn’t quite as incriminating, after all.

‘A standard process of elimination.’ Ed shrugs. ‘He’s not picking up his phone, and nobody else from the team can get ahold of him.’

‘I’m not surprised, Ed, have you seen the time?' 

‘Yes, well.’ The archivist fixes him with a shrewd look. ‘He’s usually quick to answer despite the time.’ 

Kent can’t deny that. He’s tested the theory enough. 

‘What was it you wanted him about?’ Kent tries to ignore the sly smile that’s playing on Sarala’s face. She would have to, wouldn’t she? ‘I’m sure it can wait another couple of hours until the shift.’

‘It’s actually—you’re familiar with the Groves case?’

‘I should be. We worked it.’

‘And you know it’ll be coming to trial soon?’ 

Kent nods; he’s well aware, he’s felt the way Chandler tenses every time his phone goes.

‘Well, I was having a look around some similar cases that actually made it to trial yesterday evening, mostly of the past two or three decades, and—’ He turns for a moment, almost as if he’s about to get some of the official documentation out but he glances in Sarala’s direction and decides against it. He continues on, carefully vague. ‘Well, I was going through some court documents—transcripts and the like—and I think I’ve come across some details that Joe might find useful going in—’

‘Did I hear my name?’

Oh, for fuck’s _sake._

And it was all going so well.

(Just their luck, really.)

Kent doesn’t have to turn around to picture what Chandler looks like, stood there in the junction of the hall and sitting room, bed-ruffled and clearly not just a passing occupant. He should have heard the steps but Chandler’s light on his feet, the bloody graceful bastard.  Now Chandler definitely can’t deny where he’s been. Kent might even be in one of his tops. He’s got enough of them dotted around his bedroom, now. One plain white t-shirt’s much the same as another when there’s something markedly more pressing on the other side of the doorway. It might not have been obvious before but he feels as if it just might be, now. Faced with all the evidence. 

Fuck. Why hadn’t he just said? He’s too bloody attached to the idea that they can be comfortable. They should be on their guard all the time, even in their sodding _bed_.

‘Joe?’

Christ, the bewilderment. Kent cringes.

Chandler clears his throat and just about manages a curt, ‘Ed.’ 

A brittle silence settles around them, a seemingly soundproof glass overlay, and Kent can’t even bring himself to meet anyone’s eye. It’s more the lying than anything else, although apart from the one he’s just told they’ve just been omitting things, doctoring the truth. But they’ve called people liars for less than that, haven’t they?

He hasn’t seen Ed lost for words before. Where are his dramatics when you need them?

Kent supposes Chandler will never relax in his flat again.

Even Sarala mouths ‘ _Shit_ ,’ at no one in particular from where she stands at the dining table, looking from one to the other then back to the depths of her work bag. He’d forgotten she hadn’t known Chandler was there. God, they’ve royally fucked it up this time, haven’t they? No, not they. He has. It’s his fault, isn’t it?

Kent just chews his lip and waits for the fallout.

There’s a rather obvious mark on the edge of his shirt collar; would be covered with a suit and tie but not with any of the t-shirts he sleeps in. He hasn’t really thought much about it before, but standing there in between his equally shocked colleagues it burns with its mere presence. Kent has an ungainly urge to cover it with his hand, but that would just make it more obvious. He tugs at the opposite side of his collar instead, a fidgeting movement that could easily be interpreted as discomfort. And it bloody well should, seeing as he’d just bloody well sprung the fact that he was sleeping with his boss on one of his colleagues, and if that isn’t an uncomfortable situation Kent doesn’t know what is.

Ed sits down heavily in the closest armchair, propping his briefcase up on the battered leg, and eventually redirects his wandering gaze to Chandler.

‘You—’ he begins with a deep breath and a susceptible pause. ‘You are very much an unexpected item in the bagging area.'

‘What?’ Chandler frowns, obviously expecting a completely different opening statement. He raises a hand, as if to ask for clarification, but lets it drop with a sigh that Kent doesn’t like. ‘Never mind.’

From the way Chandler sits down—heavily, slumped, only barely maintaining the relative straightness of his spine—Kent can tell he’s tense. And why wouldn’t he be? He’s just been outed. _They’ve_ been outed well before they’d even considered it as an option (if they were ever going to do that.) But even then, even with Ed’s eyes flicking between the two of them with a mixture of concern and astounded curiosity, Kent wants to help. He’s been frozen in place and trying to stay as far away from Chandler as possible, but in that moment his body makes the decision for his brain and he takes the short set of steps that bring him closer and lays a hand on the plane of Chandler’s shoulder. Kent’s more than surprised to find that he leans into the contact, ever so slightly, although he doesn’t remove his pinching fingers from the bridge of his nose.

Kent catches Sarala’s eye; she’s looking about half as shell-shocked at the rest of them. She might as well be, she’s a degree removed, but even then he fixes her with a disparaging look that he normally reserves for a very, very drunk Oliver. And he’s not even had to use that for a year or so.

She wrinkles her nose at him in lieu of an answer. ‘I think this situation calls for tea, don’t you think?’

‘That’s where it starts,’ Kent mutters as he removes his hand from Chandler’s bed-warm shoulder and walks over to her. ‘I don’t think I’ll be making myself a cup of tea for six months. You _owe_ me.’

Sarala smirks but ignores him as she gathers the required materials. ‘Ed?’ 

‘What?’ His head snaps up to where they stand in the kitchen, his gaze sticking for a moment as it slips past Kent. ‘Oh, milk, two sugars. If you don’t mind.' 

Kent shakes his head. ‘She doesn’t.’ 

‘And him?’ she asks, quietly, to Kent only this time.

‘Just milk,’ he replies, his eyes flitting back to where Chandler’s still sat with his head in his hands. ‘Not too much. Just let me do it.’

‘Well, aren’t we getting serious?’ She lets humour back onto her face—too early, in Kent’s opinion.

‘Piss off,’ he says, brisk, and watches the cogs works in Ed’s brain where he sits. ‘Why on earth did you bring him up?’

‘Said he was looking for you. Had a Met police badge and everything.’

‘He’s a bloody civilian.’

‘Still.’

Kent sighs and buries his face in one hand. ‘Fuck me.’ 

‘I think that’s what got you into this mess.’

He shoots her another look but it doesn’t make the amusement go away. ‘What made you think it was a good idea, inviting him in?’

‘Well, I didn’t know _he_ was here.’ She flicks her head back to Chandler’s vague direction.

Kent strengthens his voice to be heard over the kettle. ‘How was I supposed to tell you?’

Sarala shrugs. ‘Text?’

‘And have it in writing?’

‘Text in code.’

Kent huffs out an exasperated laugh and says, ‘Like what, _the eagle has landed_?’

Even Ed chuckles at that. Kent hadn’t realised the low rumble of the boiling water had tailed off and his own words had got more and more indignant as he’d gone on, but as Sarala tinkers around with the four mugs the momentary dash of secondary embarrassment dies away. What more has he got to be embarrassed about, after this? At least it broke the weirdness. A bit. (He wonders if it’ll ever go, really. With any of them. Because they’ve got to find out eventually. Even if it all goes tits up. In fact, that’s probably when they will.) 

He chews absentmindedly on the inside of his cheek, and bites down a bit too hard as Sarala pokes at his shoulder with the handle of a full mug. Even so, he ignores the slight acrid tint of metal and adds milk to the one she’s left, stirring in silence, and follows her lead as she reenters the fray. (If you can even call it that.) Kent nudges Chandler’s shoulder with the hand holding his tea, and the man looks up at him with a resigned expression that in any other situation Kent would have tried to rectify with a hand on the man’s jaw. He looks as if he’s got half a mind to refuse but Kent tightens the line of his mouth and the mug’s out of his hand with little resistance. Not that that means it’ll be drunk. But it’s something, anyway.

Glancing around Kent can’t help but remember the time when he’d taken Chandler apart with his mouth leaning against the back of the very chair Ed’s sitting in, the time Chandler had him clutching at his taller suited shoulder with his head thrown back against the wall, the myriad of times they staggered across the room to tumble into Kent’s bed. It’s a wonder no one else can tell. Kent feels the telltale flush rising in his face. 

Ed begins, defiantly not looking at his tea as he speaks. ‘So… you—’

‘Yes.’ Chandler interrupts. 

‘Yes?’

(Kent hadn’t expected him to be so forthcoming either. Or so blunt.)

‘That’s what I said.’

‘How…’ Ed trails off as he watches Kent hover next to Chandler’s shoulder. ‘How long?’

Kent rounds up. ‘Mille’s first.’

‘But how—’ Ed starts, frowning. ‘How haven’t I noticed?’ 

Kent looks to Chandler in confusion only to find Chandler’s shot him the same glance.

It’s only Sarala who chuckles and bumps Kent’s side with her hip. ‘See? I said you were getting worked up over nothing.’

‘What? Oh, yes, quite right—I’m pleased for you both, if this is what you want, of course,’ Ed continues, almost stumbling over himself to make sure they know he’s not got a problem with _them_ , per se. He settles down after a brief sip of tea but that doesn’t last long. (Never does, not when there’s something going on.) ‘But… that’s months! How did _I_ miss it?’

‘Just two,’ Kent corrects with a degree of self-conciousness even he can’t miss. ‘Not even that, yet.’

Chandler gives in and takes a sip of tea, and when Ed just looks at Kent with an incredulous expression he sits down next to him, consciously placing himself further away than he normally would.

‘We haven’t been… _broadcasting_ it.’

(He’s choosing his words carefully. It sounds like it pains him. _Christ_.)

‘No, no, of course not.’ Ed’s flustered again, but there’s something at the bottom of it’s that’s grounding, pensieve. ‘You’ve done very well, you know. Even if someone had suggested it, I would have thought they’d just had one drink too many.’

Kent scoffs from behind his mug. ‘Cheers, Ed.’

‘No, I don’t mean—’

‘We know what you mean, Ed, it’s fine.’

(Chandler sounds like he agrees, and it makes Kent’s stomach turn a little.)

Ed pauses, then ventures out another assumption. ‘I take it this stays between us.’

Everyone nods.

‘You don’t have to worry about me blabbing it about, then. I might unravel secrets but I can keep them too. I won’t say a word.’ He smiles at them, a little oddly but definitely honestly, then crooks his head in an afterthought. ‘Who would believe me, in any case?' 

Kent tries to make himself believe that that says more about Ed than it does about them.

It doesn’t quite work, not really, but it gives him enough courage to edge back to his normal place beside Chandler, their shoulders touching at the very least. Chandler stiffens, surprised. Kent knows he’s not one for public displays of affection, even if they weren’t under the radar, but sometimes Kent wonders if a little bit might do him good. He doesn’t do anything with the contact, just rests skin against skin and bone against bone, until Chandler turns to him with an asking expression when Kent tags on a subdued smile as well.

(Sarala and Ed wear similar soppy expressions, but they’re just going to ignore that, aren’t they?)

Chandler looks away from Kent, drops his gaze to his tea then fixes a professional eye on the researcher. ‘Have you even been home, Ed?’

Ed laughs. ‘That’s a bit much, coming from you.’

‘I have been home,’ Chandler says, casually as if he doesn’t quite realise what he’s saying.

‘You… you live here?’

‘No—’ Chandler fumbles. ‘Not exactly. Not in as many words.’ 

Kent smothers the urge to touch him again, reassure him that he’s not crossing any lines. Or that he is but he’s welcome to do it anytime. He doesn’t care which anymore, they’ve already got a slightly controlled mess on their hands and if Chandler wants to come home to Kent’s flat then he can.

Ed chooses to ignore the moment. (That’s probably going to be standard from now on.) ‘To answer your question, no. I got a bit… involved again. It’s not a problem.’

Chandler sighs but this time it’s good-natured and Kent can feel the expansion and depression of his frame against his shoulder, so there’s nothing wrong with that.

‘Go home, Ed. Get some sleep. I don’t want to see you again before midday.’ When the archivist looks as if he’s about to argue the point, Chandler smiles and a corner of his mouth hides a cordial threat. ‘And I’ll make sure of it.’ 

Ed holds his hands up in mock defeat, careful to keep his half-full mug level, and only just manages to smother a yawn.

Chandler shifts his mug from one hand to the other and Kent doesn’t miss the almost imperceptible brush to his knuckles. ‘Oh, and just out of interest: exactly how miffed was Miles when you phoned him before shift?’ 

Ed tops his shrug with a knowing smile as he gets to his feet. ‘Mildly.’

(Sometimes Kent wonders if Ed takes just as much pleasure out of annoying Miles as Miles does taking the piss out of him.)

‘Though I think his children were the cause of that. End of school coming up, isn’t it? They sounded boisterous.’

Kent flushes. He hasn’t thought about Christmas before. Not one with Chandler, anyway. Would it be with him? He doesn't quite know what result he’s hoping for. He’ll worry about that come December. Instead he focuses on the first free movement from Chandler since he’d woken properly, a half-smothered lull of laughter that’s slightly incredulous as he shakes his head. The tightness in Kent’s chest eases a little and he lets his free hand slip to Chandler’s knee as Ed turns to shrug on his raincoat, though Sarala attracts his attention with a wicked smile and he doesn’t meet the look that Chandler gives him.

She wafts her mug in the general direction of the door. ‘I’ll clear off to Tom’s, shall I?’

‘That’s the best idea you’ve had all week,’ Kent mutters as he flexes his fingers and lets go. He’s not sure Tom will be any more pleased than he and Chandler have been about being unceremoniously woken, but a romantic attachment to Sarala and her working hours probably renders the situation less than abnormal.

Sarala ignores his waspish tone and grins. ‘Won’t be long.’

‘Neither shall I,’ Ed says, rejoining the scope of their attention and looking oddly similar to the way he did that afternoon when Kent tailed him. (He’s often wondered if Ed knew. Probably does now, at the very least). ‘I’d best be obeying orders.’ 

Kent’s mouth twitches into a smirk. ‘For once in your life.’

Ed shoots him a look that’s undoubtably supposed to be disparaging but it just ends up half proud anyway, the stubborn part of him winning out as if often does. There’s still a second of confusion, of disorientation as he settles his gaze on them, though, and Kent frowns as he turns to find Chandler watching him with a softer gaze than he’s allowed himself for the entire conversation. It’s just a little thing, a slight insinuation, but it still brings a warmer smile to Kent’s mouth. 

Then, as Sarala pours the rest of her tea down the sink and rinses out the mug with a sort of perfunctory splash that’s even begun to irritate Kent now, she laughs to herself and begins to tap out a beat against her thigh. A familiar hum comes from her chest as she walks past them with a short ruffle to Kent’s hair. 

He should know what’s coming. He recognizes the tune but desperately, _desperately_ hopes they won’t get the accompaniment. 

But his luck’s been shit enough today. He shouldn’t have even have bothered.

‘ _There’s nothing like a little bit of class wrapped up in a perfect arse, the poor boy never stood a chance…_ ’

Kent cringes. That’s the last time he’s buying her tickets to see Scouting for Girls for her birthday.

*

They’re on cold case files again two days later, as per Chandler’s orders, once they’ve jumped through all the hoops and finished all the box-ticking on their last arrest. It was only a Friday night punch-up, though, so Kent has no idea how they’ve managed to keep that going for so long.

The cold cases aren’t that much better—they’re an exercise in reading paperwork instead of filling it in—but they at least throw up references that aren’t protocol guidelines. Kent jogs down the stairs that lead to Ed’s archives in search of one of the recent files. Not one they’d worked on; it’s something to do with vice squad instead, and Kent’s not sure why it’s shown up flagged in one of their cabinets.

Oh well, he supposes it’s a bit of a mystery, in a way, and they’re lacking a decent amount of that at the moment.

Ed doesn’t acknowledge him as he walks in. It’s not abnormal, and it isn’t as if he can tell anyone’s come in either thanks to the piles of boxes he perpetually doesn’t get around to re-filing. Kent’s had to sign for too many odd deliveries of Ed’s to dare looking at the labels; they’re always more obscure than the last. He wouldn’t be surprised to find that the box languishing on the floor next to the open door was salt-related crime.

Even so, when Kent rounds one of the makeshift corners (have any of them seen the walls recently?), Ed turns from where he’s sat with an timeworn tape recorder and offers him a nod in greeting, removing one earphone in preparation of conversation. Kent smiles back—there’s no reason not to, after all. Even after the world felt like it was all going to come crashing down around them, they’d all come into work and it’d been relatively normal. That’s a bit of a theme with them, isn’t it?

(He’s been good about it, really, if a bit smug.)

(Though that’s not enough of a change for anyone to notice.)

‘How are the tapes coming, Ed?’ Kent asks, eyeing the ancient things with a degree of apprehension.

He huffs. ‘It’s a bit slower than I’d like. South African accents, you know. All the vowels sound the same.’

Kent doesn’t quite know what to say to that. ‘Er, right.’

Ed turns to him and removes his glasses, but only barely. ‘Anything you’re looking for in particular?’

‘Yes, actually. The Marshall case, from mid-2008. I think it should have been in the most recent set of boxes.’

‘Ah, yes. I’ve not got around to filing that in my own system yet, so you’re in luck. Straight that way, second trolley on the right.’

How Ed had managed to fashion a maze out of boxes and shelves confounded most of them, and even with those instructions Kent ends up rifling through a few boxes of the wrong subject until he realises he’s in Lithuanian crime of the Cold War—a world away from the dodgy multiple stabbing that he’s looking for. Luckily it’s not that far off—it’s an odd system, they should have a printout with guidelines, maybe he’ll even try and make one later on if nothing else comes up—and the file finds its way into his hands eventually.

‘Got it, Ed,’ he calls as he weaves back through to the main cleared space, narrowly avoiding clipping some lose shelving with his shoulder. ‘Should have it back to you later this afternoon.’

Ed waves a dismissive hand in the entirely wrong direction. ‘Oh, it’s not pressing.’

‘I thought it all was.’ 

‘I’ve got seventeen more hours to transcribe on this set alone.’ Ed turns back to his desk; Kent doesn’t need to see his expression to roll his eyes at it. ‘I think a closed, done-and-dusted case from five years ago can wait, don’t you?’ 

‘Bit dismissive there, don’t you think, Buchan?’ 

Miles’ voice drifts through from around the pile of Spanish Inquisitorial inquests, followed by two sets of steps. His face appears a second later, scowling in that good-humoured way that sometimes wanders onto his repertoire of expressions. Chandler follows, bending to avoid the dusty lampshade and catching Kent’s eye with a brief twitch of a smile (it’s blink and you’ll miss it, as usual) before he returns his attention to the back of Miles’ head. 

The skipper frowns at Kent. ‘What are you down here for? I thought you’d gone to lunch.’

‘The Marshall file.’ Kent shrugs and gestures with the manila folder. ‘It’s flagged as a reference in the case I’ve been looking at, some of the same names I think. I thought I’d have a look at it.’

Chandler holds his gaze for a moment. Kent smothers the beginnings of a smile, the spontaneous promise of a shared meal kept safely under control, and tries to ignore the feeling on the back of his neck that feels awfully like Ed beaming at the back of his head.

‘Still on that?’ Miles asks, recoiling as he accidentally leans against a box that’s not as well secured as he’d hoped.

‘There’s nothing else, is there?’ A brief spark of optimism flares in Kent’s chest.

Chandler shakes his head. ‘You’ll be the first to know if there is. I’m not sure Miles could contain himself.’

Miles scoffs. ‘Lay off it.’ 

Kent tries to keep his smile to himself. ‘What are you doing down here anyway, Skip?’ 

‘His nibs said there’s some material that might be useful for the Groves trial next month.’

‘On the end of the other desk.’ Ed’s voice appears from behind them, oddly loud thanks to the headphones. ‘My notes should explain everything.’

They just look at each other: each of them is leaning on a different desk—or table, really, but Ed uses them as desks so that’s what they’ll call them. Even if they all do share one chair.

Chandler voices the collective question. ‘Which end of which desk?’

‘The one—’ Ed throws a glance over his shoulder, perfunctory but it catches and he tuts. ‘Oh, no, I moved that one. Needed more storage. The typewriters, you know.’ (They don’t.) ‘No, now it’d be the one behind you, Joe. My left.’ 

Miles shoots Ed a look as Chandler goes to investigate the piles of paper. ‘You’ve got a few pages stuck together.’

‘Unfortunately,’ he replies, not looking up from where he’s leafing through a card organizer. ‘They’re in section seven. The damage is beyond my expertise, I’m afraid; I’ll need to get someone in. And I’ve been meaning to have a word with you about some cases of vinegar syndrome as well, Joe.’ 

Chandler chuckles, shaking his head while glancing at the cover pages as Skip looks on with an incredulous expression. 

‘Looks like you’ll need to make an appointment for that, Ed.’

Kent makes a show of glancing at his watch as he speaks, but it only serves to remind him of the time. He probably should go to lunch soon.

But the archivist isn’t listening anymore. His attention’s been absorbed by some of the accompanying literature, mainly what looks like a very complicated map that takes up three-quarters of the desk. Kent knows that as policemen they can spend weeks looking at lists of names and lines of pictures and reconstructed crime scenes but he can’t possibly face staring at a map like that for any longer than five minutes. It’d make his eyes go funny.

Miles looks as if he’s had the same idea.

‘Right, then,’ he says, squinting at the key on the page’s corner before remembering what a task that would be and giving up. ‘Is that it?’

Chandler holds up the handful of files. ‘Ed?’ 

‘There should be four.’

The DI does a quick count, then double checks. ‘Yes, this is all of them. Cheers, Ed—when do you need them back?’

Ed waves a dismissive hand then lowers it to follow the trail of something—presumably the subject of whatever book he’s penning now—across a string of streets.

Miles watches as if half interested but soon returns to his shaking head and gruff tone. ‘Come on then, boss, no need to hang around.’

Chandler nods and looks as if he agrees, but just as Miles rounds the corner through to the hallway outside he pauses and lays a hand on the doorframe. The glance he gives Kent speaks volumes but possibly only to him; Kent responds with a small nod, not even a smile, and a twitch of his grip around the folder in the crook of his arm.

When Chandler disappears down the hall and Kent’s turned around, he finds Ed shooting him a significant look over the rim of his glasses so honestly overdone that it can’t not be comedic. 

Kent snorts out a laugh. ‘And you can stop that, Ed.’

*

December creeps up on them, and before he knows what’s hit him Chandler’s trying to find an excuse not to attend Miles’ Christmas do.

(He doesn’t find one, and gets roped in anyway.)

They don’t get any major calls. The criminals of Whitechapel aren’t up to their worst, apparently. It’s thanks to the duty roster that they get any sort of work at all, even if it is just the very basic, transparent cases. It takes longer to follow protocol than it does to figure out who threw the fatal punch, who thrust the switchblade upwards. They get quite good at paperwork, too, even though Riley and Miles have an unfortunate predilection for accidentally leaving half-drunk mugs of tea on half-filled in forms. Once or twice they haven’t even needed the full team or the full day. A mugging here, a punch-up there; nothing that makes Chandler’s heart race half as much as Kent does.

Maybe that’s why when Miles pesters him about thinking about taking a day off—a proper one, not just a half-hearted effort where he’s on duty but not in the station—Chandler doesn’t fight him too much.

In fact, he might not even fight him at all.

(Not really.)

*

Miles’ infamous Christmas do lives up to its notorious reputation.

Chandler wisely sticks to orange juice, Riley overdoes the mulled wine and Kent’s ploughed over by a polar bear, whatever sort of drink that is. Mansell had just appeared with one—they really should have taken his waggling eyebrows more seriously. They don’t even have to hide the fact that Kent ends up leaving with Chandler; Miles virtually has to pack him into the car himself.

(Mansell’s not even sorry; he’s too busy trying to pick himself up from where he’s been doubled over laughing.)

Apparently the trip back to pick up his bike the next morning was simultaneously mortifying and amusing—Miles’ boys are at that age, after all, even they aren’t above teasing Kent—but Chandler’s only heard about it secondhand. From several different sources, mind you, so it’s probably as complete as it’ll get. Even bribing Kent with kisses to the nape of his neck and a slow hand doesn’t get anything out of him except sarcastic remarks that bear more than a bit of self-depricating humour. 

It’s a good thing that Kent’s just as tight-lipped when he’s drunk. Silly, yes, but not revelatory. Maybe the brain knows there are certain things you have to keep to yourself, inebriated or not.

Even so, it takes two days before Kent can even look at a bottle of vodka without curling his lip and just as long before anyone in the incident room can catch each others’ eyes without even a hint of suppressed mirth. 

*

Kent cracks an eye. ‘Your phone’s going.’ 

Chandler frowns, snuffles, but doesn’t open his eyes. ‘I know.’ He moves to press his face into the end of Kent’s pillow. 

‘Why’s it on my bedside table?’ 

‘I don’t know,’ he mutters in reply, slightly amused in the odd dozy way he adopts at this time in the morning. 

Kent takes his time with the arriving smile. It may be Christmas morning but the same twisting pleasure arrives in his chest every time he wakes with Chandler, warm and mellow and settled. The phone stops rattling against the wood—they must have just woken to catch the tail end, or whoever it was that was calling had given up quickly—and Kent relaxes futher, muscles loose and pliable under the weight of Chandler’s arm. He doesn’t drift off straight away and lies there in the sooty dark of morning dulled by curtains, eyes tender as he studies Chandler’s face. It’s half covered in pillow, he’s never quite got rid of the habit of sleeping half on his stomach, but Kent feels a flood of relief as the finds nothing there, no tension or background concern or low-level anxiety. It’s only because Chandler’s slipped straight back into sleep—it’ll all return as soon as he folds back the duvet—but these brief moments settle Kent somehow, remind him that there is some peace in Chandler somewhere.

There’s just the opalescent shadow of the cut on the bridge of Chandler’s nose, an invisible scar. Kent can only really see it if he’s this close, or if Chandler’s cold. He supposes it would probably show up if Chandler caught the sun, too. He can’t help but smile at the thought—he’d like to see that, if it ever happens. 

Kent must slide back into a hazy twilight consciousness because when the phone goes again it feels much closer and he jerks awake with the sensation of falling. Even Chandler doesn’t miss that reflex, not when it’s paired with the piercing sound of the call; he watches with a degree of apprehension as Kent wrestles his heart back down into his chest cavity.

He smiles and shoves Chandler’s shoulder with an open palm. ‘Answer your bloody phone.’

Chandler huffs but raises himself onto one wobbly elbow anyway; he’d have to do something about the racket, wouldn’t he? Kent presses back into the mattress as Chandler leans over, but when it’s clear that he’s not bothered about actually having the space to do it Kent just lets Chandler hover above him, their stomachs brushing with each deep inhale. Chandler’s mouth tightens when he reads the screen, mobile still vibrating in his hand, and as he’s clearing his throat to answer Kent leans upwards and brushes a brief kiss to the outline of his shoulder.

The look Chandler shoots Kent as he speaks is oddly amusing in its confusion. ‘DI Chandler.’

Kent doesn’t ask who it is; it doesn’t matter, really, and if it does he’ll find out sooner or later. It’s only when Chandler tenses as Kent runs a palm across his lower back that he recognised the tinny voice (more from its rhythm and careful received pronunciation than any sort of personal familiarity) as that of Commander Anderson.

_Right_. He’d forgotten they were basically family. Or were they? Godfather, uncle, Chandler had never said outright and Miles refuses to talk about it if Chandler doesn’t want to. Kent removes his hand with a speed that makes Chandler turn and glance down at him in the middle of a hum of agreement, and Kent really only relaxes when Chandler bends his head to rest on Kent’s shoulder as the Commander prattles on about something on the other end.

Kent struggles to stop himself from trying to keep his breathing shallow, unobservable. It’s a reflex it’s probably useful to keep.

‘I appreciate that you took the time to ring,’ Chandler says, dropping lower on his elbow until they’re virtually forming a perpendicular angle. ‘Merry Christmas to you as well. Say the same to Rose and Ellie from me.’ 

The names come out of his mouth awkwardly, like he’s never even met them before. But Kent doesn’t dwell on it because the call’s over as abruptly as it began and Chandler’s shoved his phone back where it came from. He rubs a hand over his face—still a bit dazed from sleep and the sudden need for clearheadedness—and turns back to Kent with an apologetic smile. 

‘Sorry about that.’ 

Kent grins back and cocks his head. ‘Why? They haven’t burst in here, have they?’ He presses a finger into the tensed muscle of Chandler’s arm. ‘I’d be a bit more concerned about getting an apology for something of that magnitude.’ 

Chandler looks mildly horrified at the suggestion for a moment but settles on an eventual humour as he shifts back to Kent’s side. He doesn’t offer any more information; Kent doesn’t ask. It’s been a good two years since he’s set eyes on the Commander, anyway. Chandler probably thinks he wouldn’t recognise the significance. (Maybe he doesn’t. Maybe there is none. Maybe they’re all bloody paranoid.) Instead he just presses his nose to the cap of Kent’s shoulder and swipes a hand over the rucked covers, spreading them back into their proper place as best as he can without looking or moving. He yawns, the slow stretch of his jaw pressing against Kent’s skin, but for all of Kent’s relaxed stillness Chandler can’t seem to find the same. Not anymore, anyway—he squirms, fidgets, like a cat frustrated trying to make its nest. It’s everything coming back; Kent can almost see it.

He gives up, rolls away onto his back and scowls at how his movement pulls the sheets. Kent turns his head, the inquisitive gaze in his eyes only finding the side of Chandler’s head. Kent only really finds it difficult to roll out of bed if he’s not had enough sleep—which is more often than it should be, really, but not this morning. Chandler always seems like he’s playing catchup on a year’s backlog. Yet he’s got a mind that won’t leave him alone and once disturbed it’s hard for him to settle. He doesn’t know but Kent’s experienced it, on nights when he’s uncharacteristically woken alone in the middle of the night only to catch a blurry outline of Chandler’s silhouette in the lamplight that seeps through the crack in the almost-open door. 

So Kent does nothing. The last thing Chandler needs is him hanging onto him like some sort of limpet. Instead he turns his head and presses a repetition of his earlier kiss onto Chandler’s closest shoulder, a nudge this time instead of a pull. (It feels as if there’s a difference.) 

Chandler sighs and gives up on the sheets. ‘I’m going for some tea.’

‘Couldn’t manage two cups, could you?’ Kent asks, smiling up at him as he connects his feet with the floor.

Something simultaneously softens and tightens in Chandler’s features. ‘Sorry I woke you.’

Kent smirks. ‘I think you’ll find that was your phone.’

Chandler doesn’t say anything, just straightens his back and turns over his shoulder to fix Kent with an asking gaze.

‘Are you kidding?’ Kent grins and rolls onto his side. ‘You’ve got a day off. Let’s call it Christmas every time that happens.’

Chandler doesn’t look especially convinced but a smile finds its way out, slowly but surely. Then he’s walkng through the bedroom door, all an expanse of bare back and a familiar set of shoulders. Kent settles into the extra space, the warmed sheets that don’t just smell of Chandler but of _them_ , curves his hand and his level breathing into the low indentation that reminds him where Chandler usually sleeps, usually invites him.

Then _his_ phone goes.

‘For fuck’s sake—’

He moves much faster than Chandler had; he’s less resigned and more annoyed, more ready to chuck the thing against the wall if it just turns out to be another bogus text from his service provider. His fingers twitch as he recognises Oliver’s number and he grabs at the mobile, answering the call and pressing it to his ear in one motion.

There’s no chance to say anything before two voices chant in unison across the line; Kent holds the phone away from his ear and rolls his eyes at the ceiling.

‘Oi oi! Enjoying your Christmas shag?’

‘Don’t think we haven’t pegged where you are!’

They must have the bloody thing on speakerphone. Kent could do without the Ant and Dec double act at this time in the morning but he smirks to himself anyway.

‘Even if we haven’t found out with who yet.’

Fred laughs, slightly further away from the microphone. ‘But it’s only a matter of time!’

He’s right, in a way. They might be daft but they’re not dim. The thought that he’s shagging someone he’s not supposed to could have already occurred to them. But even so, on the timescale he and Chandler are on, Fred and Ol aren’t at the top of the list of _need-to-knows_. Not at first, anyway.

‘Yeah, yeah. All right. You’ve got me.’ Kent laughs despite himself—that’s their uncanny talent. ‘Now piss off and have a merry Christmas.’

There’s a clinking of glasses, and then: ‘Will do, Kent, don’t you worry about that.’

If Kent had to guess he’d say they’re already a little bit merry. Probably leftover from last night. 

‘You tell him—whoever this bloke is—’ Ol begins with an edge to his voice that Kent can tell is put on, even at this distance. ‘—that he’ll have us to answer to if he buggers this up.’

Fred sniggers in the background. ‘He’s going to do that anyway.’

‘You know what I mean,’ Ol replies, with a degree of exasperation that’s more mischievous than anything else.

‘And you two are bloody terrifying.’

(Kent would like to see them try and threaten Chandler. They might succeed if only for their incorrigible scruffiness.)

‘You should know. You’re always calling us terrors.’

‘That’s because you are.’ Kent twists and cranes his neck in an attempt to glance through into the kitchen; it doesn’t work, but in the rare lull he can hear Chandler moving about, pacing as he waits. He pushes up onto an elbow and relaxes back on the pillows a little bit more propped up than before.  ‘Give my love to Sar.’ 

Fred shouts something through the background, too loud to be anything other than garbled sound, and Sarala’s voice only just about edges through in a muffled reply he’s never going to get clearly.

‘Done and dusted.’

Kent tuts. ‘Not exactly what I meant, but close enough.’

‘Shall we let you get on with it, then?’ 

He can almost hear their grins—they sound a lot like his own.

‘Probably should.’

‘Happy shagging—!’

Kent cuts off the call before Ol can launch into anything else. (Not that he doesn’t appreciate the sentiment.)

It’s probably obvious to Chandler who he was speaking to. It’s obvious to everyone who’s ever met those two—Riley can tell if they’ve contacted him just by the way he looks at his phone—and Kent doubts that Chandler would even need to meet them to know. He just needs to know of them. Which of course he does, they’ve spent more time than they probably should trying to make sure they avoid bumping into them, and maybe that residual habit is why Chandler eyes the mobile when he comes back through, one mug in each hand.

Or maybe it’s just because Kent’s let it slip through his fingers onto the folded edge of the duvet. He’s quick to clasp it in his hand, move it back to where Chandler’s sits silent next to the lamp. Knowing him he’ll just end up shoving his elbow through the screen if he left it there anyway—it wouldn’t be the first time that had happened—so Kent doesn’t mind. Instead he turns back and smiles, fingers fidgeting with those of his other hand until he gets a warm look in return. 

‘It’s raining.’ Chandler offers him the tea alongside the pointless observation.

Kent lifts the mug from his hand with gentle fingers, cups the bottom with a curved hand, and borrows an insubordinate eye-roll from Miles' repertoire. ‘It does that in London.’

Chandler crooks a brow at his flippancy, but Kent’s smirk brings a similar one to his face. In any case, the weather’s not worth mentioning; it’s been chucking it down for days, even on that evening that only comes back hazy and the clearest thing he can remember is Miles cuffing him around the back of the head once or twice. As Kent blows on the surface of his drink he thinks of the burgundy cashmere he’s got wrapped in plain paper in his bedside table in his own flat, how the tone will suit Chandler even if it’s pissing down. He’s the sort of man that even torrential rain wouldn’t ruin. (He probably thinks it would, but he’s wrong.) He’ll get it to him later; he’ll need to go back for an hour or so, at least, though he’s not about to venture out just yet. One downside of the bike is, to put it bluntly, absolutely every single facet of winter.

A glance outside the window as Chandler pulls one curtain half open tells him that it’s a thick, cold, grey morning; all the winter without the wonder. He’s glad he’s still in bed and not faced with a day of trudging through all that, the sleet and the slush and the discarded cigarettes. Chandler even manages to look warm as he stands next to the window, silhouetted and bordered by the biting cold kept out by brick and glass, even only in skin and a thin layer of plaid—just as warm as the ceramic between Kent’s hands, the heat prickling his fingers.  

It’s a good thing Chandler’s heating is a model of efficiency. Theirs just makes an odd gurgling sound and does its pitiful best; Kent should probably look into getting someone in. But, as pressing as that probably should be, he can’t quite make his mind stick on it as Chandler’s settling back onto the mattress next to him. There’s something herbal about his green tea, wafts of warm air that Kent just finds vaguely medicinal compared with what’s in his own mug. Still, it’s something that’ll always remind Kent of him now, whatever happens. 

(Maybe he won’t need reminding. Maybe he will.) 

Kent tests the liquid as he watches the side of Chandler’s face, the flex in his jaw and the brow that looks odd for being without a crease of concern. When he finds the slight rosy patch on the side of his throat, just that little bit too high to be covered by a collared shirt when he gets around to putting one on, a similar flush rises in his face; they’re taking advantage, aren’t they? Pushing it a bit far. There’s no guarantee that’ll go by the time Chandler’s day off expires.

Chandler looks guilty as he turns to watch Kent swallow down both tea and a lurch of soft want. ‘Would you like—?’

Kent cuts him off with raised eyebrows. ‘I am capable of having a cup of tea without a biscuit.’

His mouth twitches into a half-smile. ‘You’ve had me fooled.’

‘It’d just make a mess.’ Kent shrugs.

The other man doesn’t look at him, just stares past the cup in his hand and towards the dark mess of sheets. ‘I wouldn’t kick you out of bed over crumbs.’

‘Yes, you would.’ Kent replies, confident and with the inkling of a laugh. Chandler looks to him, badly confused and possibly even a little bit hurt, so Kent wrinkles his nose at him and shakes his head, good-natured in all senses of the word. (As if he could be anything else in this situation.) ‘ _I_ would, too.’ 

Chandler chuckles, and does that small smile that actually shows his teeth as he looks away. Kent grins at that alone, at that small thing that Chandler probably doesn’t even realise he’s done, and leans over to press close and find the tea-warmed mouth he’s looking for.

Merry Christmas, indeed.

*

Chandler had half-hoped, half-expected to come back to a desk overflowing with pressing cases.

It wasn’t. He’d only been off for a day, after all. He’d have known before getting within a mile of the station if anything had come in. So and he the team ride out the Christmas limbo through to New Year’s when Kent had turned up outside Chandler’s flat at half past midnight, just on the enthusiastic side of tipsy, and walked them both backwards until Chandler’s spine bumped a wall and he could lower his lips to touch, lightly parted, against Chandler’s throat. Then he’d murmured, ‘Sorry I’m a bit late,’ even thought they’d made no arrangements and, with his face creased into warm grin, curled his tongue around Chandler’s.

The first few weak days of January, blistering and cold when it isn’t drizzling, see them clocking in and out at the times actually prescribed on their contracts. Chandler finds himself wrapping his neck in Kent’s gift more often than he would have expected. The first time he’d come into work wearing it Kent had looked up from the kettle and not taken the smile off all day. That had almost been enough to keep the boredom at bay. _Almost_. 

One evening, as the station slowly filters down to its skeleton staff and the duty officers who had pulled the short straw, Chandler exits his office in search of one more—just _one_ more—cup of tea to accompany the dry reading of bureaucratic protocol when Riley calls out to him from behind the others standing near her desk.

‘You’re going, then?’ she asks when he approaches, slotting himself in between the wall and Miles, conveniently opposite where Kent stands perched against another desk.

He fumbles for a moment, gestures aimlessly with the empty mug. ‘Not quite.’

Miles shakes his head. ‘Dunno what you’ve fallen in love with here, but there’s nothing to do in that office at this hour, boss.’ 

Kent’s careful to avoid his eye.

‘Lay off him,’ Riley says with a smile at the edge of her voice, an unsaid understanding hidden there somewhere Chandler’s never thought to look. ‘Anyway, what do you lot say? Next Saturday?’ 

Mansell grins. ‘Works for me.’ 

‘If there’s a drink involved, it always works for you,’ Kent says, tone dry though not entirely unfriendly.

He gets a laddy jostle from Mansell’s elbow for his trouble. ‘Maybe if it worked for you, you’d find some bird who’d put up with you.’ 

Kent’s mouth turns distasteful, and Chandler can’t tell if the sudden lurch in his chest comes from the idea of Kent looking elsewhere or the thought that anyone would have to just _put up_ with him.

‘Oi, remember I don’t have to allow you into my house.’ 

‘Sorry,’ Chandler begins, interrupting because Mansell can say anything else that might prompt Riley to start wielding a rolled-up newspaper as a weapon. ‘But what exactly is it we’re deciding on?’

‘My husband, like all of us, is aging,’ Riley begins after fixing Mansell with a final warning look, ‘and has reached the annual milestone that normally necessitates a get-together and drinks.’

‘You know Judy and I will be there, Meg,’ Miles says with a glance at his watch. ‘Speaking of which, she’ll kill me if I spend hours here nattering, so if you don’t mind…’

They all murmur their goodbyes, their good evenings and their sarky good riddances, but when he’s disappeared through the doors and up the stairs Riley turns on Kent.

‘I’ve already promised your presence.’

Kent frowns, shooting an uneasy glance at Chandler before turning back to her. ‘To whom?’

‘The kids think you’re absolutely brilliant,’ she explains as she gets to her feet, fishing a woolen scarf from the depths of her handbag. ‘Much cooler than the rest of us. I have no idea why.’ 

He looks oddly proud at that, almost as if he’s surprised himself with the emotion. ‘Well, don’t look at me. I don’t know either.’ 

‘Probably something to do with the fact that you’re nowhere near as decrepit as the rest of us.’

‘Come off it, I’ve got my own aches and pains.’ He kneads the back of his neck to underline his point, but Chandler knows there’s truth there.

(Though some part of him wants to suggest that it’s just because of how he sleeps, but then again he’s not supposed to know things like that at the station, is he?)

‘At least you’ve half an idea of what they’re on about most of the time.’ 

‘Not my fault you don’t keep up.' 

‘Any more of that cheek and you won’t be getting in, either.’ Riley sounds sharp but there’s a warmth there that makes Mansell grin in their odd sort of camaraderie.

Kent overdoes a sigh and a shrug as he shifts his attention to Chandler. ‘And there I was, thinking I was in demand.’

Chandler’s mouth quirks into an open smile, at least until Riley turns to him as she knots the free ends of her scarf. 

‘And you!’ she says, pointing at him with a woolen tassel. ‘You’re a mythical creature. I don’t think Rob even believes you exist.’ 

He doesn’t really know how to counter that. ‘I can assure you that I do, in fact, exist.’ 

‘Well, I know that, don’t I?’ She pulls her hair out of the folds of scarf, waggles her fingers and an outstretched palm at Mansell until he hands her the grabber on her desk. ‘He’s never set eyes on you. I’m sure he’d like to have a word with whoever’s putting us all on overtime.’ 

Chandler must balk, at least a little bit, because the laughter softens around her eyes and she adds, ‘Don’t worry, I’m sure young Kent and Mansell over here can hold him off long enough for you to make a swift exit if it all goes badly, sir.’

‘You’re really making this sound enticing.’

‘I’m sure you’ll survive, boss.’ She winks at him. ‘We aren’t all vagabonds.’

Kent looks up from where he’s been shuffling papers and shoots him a wry, curved smile. (One he knows too well, now.) ‘Go on, sir.’

Riley mustn’t miss the slight croon in his voice because her grin widens just as Chandler’s falls away at the edges, suggestion dulling whatever thought he’d had for a moment before he can wrap himself back into a presentable state of mind. Mansell just grins, waiting and watching. 

‘All right,’ he says, and they all look pleased, even bloody Mansell and his ever-present smirk. ‘What time?’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 30 December 2013.
> 
> The song Sarala references is Scouting for Girls - Posh Girls.
> 
> I've just realised we're over halfway through this and I still can't believe it! Thank you so much again for the comments, kudos, and support; it all means so much to me. Hope you've all had a lovely Christmas (or if you don't bother with Christmas, that you've had a lovely week so far!)


	9. Chapter 9

They try not to arrive together, but it happens anyway out of pure coincidence.

Chandler’s just getting out of his car when he hears the rattle of Kent’s bike, the one he’s come to recognize out of the corner of his hearing. He’s sure there’s something wrong with it, something loose in the ignition or exhaust or something (it’s not as if he’s at all familiar with the things), but Kent just says it’s always made that sound ever since he laid hands on it. The amount of times its been in the shop would suggest otherwise, but he won’t hear a bad word about the thing. As much as it should worry Chandler, it doesn’t. It just makes him smile at the handle of his car door as it beeps shut and the flash of headlights illuminates Kent’s silhouette in the clear dark air.

For a moment Chandler tries to convince himself just to go up and ring the doorbell on his own, ignoring Kent’s simultaneous arrival. He wouldn’t mind, he’d know why, but after the first step towards the front door Chandler stops himself and turns on his heel. It can’t hurt, and it isn’t as if it would be abnormal for any of them to stop and chat. He’s got to stop over-thinking these things before one day he goes too far and does something that reveals everything.

Kent looks up in his direction as he pulls off his helmet, grinning as he recognises his figure. ‘Hello.’

‘Good evening?’ Chandler asks as he comes to a halt beside the constable on the pavement.

‘All right,’ Kent says with half a hidden smile.

(Chandler knows, of course. Kent’s the one who suggested the jumper he’s got on. They’d only last parted company at tea-time.)

He smiles back, quiet but clear, as Kent does whatever fiddling it is that’s required before he can leave the bike on its own.

Chandler nods towards the house, glowing warm. ‘Have you met him before?’

‘Once or twice, yeah,’ Kent says, glancing up at him as he fights to keep his coattails down against the wind. ‘Briefly. He’s a good bloke. Might be a little bit too much like Mansell for all the time, they’ve got almost exactly the same sense of humour and God knows we don’t need another one of him.’ 

‘Thanks for the warning.’ 

Kent grins. ‘Wouldn’t want you getting overcome, sir.’

Chandler tries to frown at him but it doesn’t come. Instead he lets half his mouth curve into a smile and gestures in the direction of the house with one gloved hand. ‘Shall we?’

He gets a hum in return, a familiar pleased one that he normally feels through his skin, and it sends an inadvertent shiver down Chandler’s spine despite the layers. Kent doesn’t seem to notice and he flashes another smile through the night air as he walks past him, catching his elbow with a soft curl of fingers drawing him down the garden path. Chandler lets him, doesn’t fight it, but mostly because he hadn’t expected it and really can’t think straight until Kent’s hand falls to his side and he actually misses the contact despite the low panic of possible discovery. That’s unsafe, isn’t it? Too close. They’d best not get anywhere near Ed; he’d be able to tell with a second’s glance, now, and although he’s well meaning there’s always that small chance that he’ll let it slip. He won’t mean to, but he might do it, accidentally.

That thought’s brought bile to the back of Chandler’s throat more than once in the past few weeks. It doesn’t have chance to get that far this time as he and Kent stand on the doorstop, Chandler’s hand outstretched to ring the doorbell until he spots the weatherworn note telling them it’s broken beyond repair. Kent raps his knuckles on the wood of the doorframe instead, with a sort of insistence that will hopefully be overheard from further inside. When a gruff-looking Miles appears from the hall through the decorative glass, they glance at once another with matching bemused expressions, although it’s Chandler who shrugs and Kent who lets out a puzzled chuckle.

The sergeant heaves the door open and the heating spills out into the winter air. 

‘It’s like I’m the bloody doorman,’ he mutters, although there’s a degree of good-humoured acceptance there. He looks between them both, one brow crooked, as they step over the threshold and out of the biting cold. ‘Are you two carpooling now, or what?’

Chandler clears his throat. ‘Happenstance.’

Miles doesn’t seem entirely convinced—ironic, really, since this time Chandler is actually relaying the situation as it is—and he turns to Kent to see if he’s got anything better to say. (He hasn’t, Chandler knows, and for some reason it makes the colour rise in his face. Or is that the combination of his coat and the heating?) 

‘Hello, Babs!’

Miles shoots Kent possibly the most accosted ‘ _excuse you_?’ look that Chandler’s ever seen, but it falls away once he realises that he’s distinctly not speaking to him but instead to the wiry bundle of legs and fur that Kent had scooped under one arm before it could sprint out the open door. The creature leans its head so far backwards it looks like it might snap and licks at Kent’s chin; he has to employ his other hand to keep it steady, the tail on it’s whirring so quickly back and forth. 

‘I take it you two know each other, then?’ Miles asks dryly as he shuts the door.

Kent laughs as the Jack Russell nips at the edge of his coat collar. ‘We have been introduced.’ 

‘She’s very familiar.’

(Chandler’s trying very hard to smother the smile that keeps appearing whether Babs manages to lick Kent’s noise in the midst of all that canine wiggling.) 

‘She’s like that with everyone,’ Riley says with a grin as she rounds the corner into the hall. ‘Most useless guard dog you’ve ever met, that one. She’d show a burgular the valuables if he took the time to scratch her tum.’ 

Chandler chuckles. ‘It doesn’t seem as if she’d give him a moment’s peace to pocket them, either.’ 

‘I suppose that’s something.’ Riley shakes her head at the terrier as she continues her attack on the loose tassels of Kent’s scarf, but the look’s fond. ‘Come on then, you lot. Come through, bring the dog.’ 

Kent hikes Babs higher under his arm, trying to get a better grip before moving, and Chandler takes the chance to pat the creature on her head.  Somehow she manages to twist and lick the dip between his forefinger and thumb, and although Kent frowns and tries to shift his handhold so he can keep her from accosting the DI’s appendages too badly Chandler’s mouth twitches into a surprised smile and he tickles her under the chin, shifts her bright red collar so the name-tags sit flush against the tan patch of fur on her chest. He doesn’t quite know why Kent looks so surprised; he’s always liked dogs. He’s just never had one—probably never will, but ten minutes with someone else’s can’t hurt. 

‘Go on,’ Chandler urges, ‘before she worms her way out and decides to find another opportune open doorway.’

Kent looks at him for a moment, just looks, until there’s another bout of wriggling and his chin collides with the back of the terrier’s skull and he seems knocked back into reality. Chandler nudges his side, a momentary glancing touch that might have been considered an accident if anyone had seen out of the corner of their eye, and Kent walks forward just as Miles reappears with an expression intended to hasten. 

‘What are you two milling about here for?’

As usual, Kent recovers first. ‘Slippy, this one, Skip. You fancy trying to keep a good grip?’

‘Definitely not. I’ve thrown me arm out too many times before to do that.' 

‘Then don’t complain, _sir_.’

Miles shoots Chandler a warning look but they all know he’s putting it on. The indisputable evidence comes when Babs makes a beeline for Miles as soon as Kent deposits her on the floor. The sergeant crouches down to acquiesce to her request for a pat on the head, then someone in the next room whistles and she’s off, claws rattling against the wooden floors. They follow, Kent poking his head around the doorway of the kitchen first, and Miles leans his head towards Chandler in confidence as they bring up the rear.

‘Steer clear of him,’ Miles mutters to Chandler once they reach the threshold, thrusting his head backwards to indicate the man in a shiny corporate suit they’d just passed. ‘Could bore the tits off a bull, that one.’

Chandler doesn’t say anything, just nods and arbitrarily chooses the whiskey out of the list of drinks Riley offers him. Miles makes some remark about how if Chandler can nurse a pint of beer for as long as he did at Mansell’s wedding then he’ll still be drinking that glass next week; Kent just smiles out of the corner of his mouth and accepts the longneck Riley hands him without asking. 

‘Right, you’re all set now—you can’t complain I haven’t taken care of you, can you?’ Riley quips, crossing her arms once she’s picked up her own glass. 

Miles feigns innocence; it hasn’t looked right on him for about a decade. ‘Never would.’

‘Sod off!’ She says with a laugh and a gentle flick of her hand to the sergeant’s shoulder. ‘You’d be complaining the worst of the lot if I neglected you, skip.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve got to cope somehow, haven’t I?’

‘I think you’ll find it’s Kent who subsists on sarcasm.' 

‘Don’t remind me,’ Miles says as they’re all ushered through to the sitting room. ‘It’s getting worse as he ages.’

‘He’ll be on par with you in five years then, eh?’

‘I don’t even want to imagine that.’

‘Oi!’ 

Kent’s exclamation’s meant to be disparaging, but he’s smiling all the same and Riley swats at his shoulder as well while they squeeze through the doorway. Chandler follows with a fond smile playing at the edges of his mouth that’s for all of them, for all of their easy camaraderie that makes his job that much easier. He hasn’t thought much of it before, but in that moment where he expects to feel painfully uneasy in a group full of people he only half recognises, Chandler concludes that it must be that that brings a certain ease to his head.

Mansell’s stood next to the curtained window deep in a conversation that doesn’t halt as they weave through the sparse crowd and approach. ‘So you’re telling me your opening line was “hold on, let me put some trousers on”?’

‘Or something thereabouts,’ the other man says, chuckling. 

Riley sidles up to his side and shakes her head. ‘Took him five years to come with another line, though. Don’t think it works miracles.’ She pokes Mansell in the arm. ‘Bit too slow for you, I should think.’

Mansell grins. ‘And you know my time management techniques so well.’

‘Right then,’ Riley says, plainly ignoring the array of jokes Mansell’s just offered her. ‘This is my husband, Robert Riley. Try not to scare him by reminding him how ancient he is now.’

‘Only as ancient as you.’ Robert grins at her, bumps her shoulder with his. ‘You always seem to conveniently forget that we’re the same age.’

‘Sod off.’ She turns away from him and shakes her head, searching for commiseration, before motioning towards each of the newest arrivals in turn. ‘You’ve met Kent before—’

‘Of course, wouldn’t forget you, eh?’ His face breaks into a broad smile that rivals Mansell’s best. 

Kent tips his drink in greeting, slightly sardonic. ‘Evening, Rob.’ 

Riley ignores them both. ‘And this is our DI—’

‘Ah, the infamous Detective Inspector Chandler!’ Rob says, enlivening even more as he places the name with the face. ‘Hello!’ 

Chandler isn’t sure if he’s comfortable with that particular descriptor, even as he extends his arm for an amicable handshake. He knows what Rob means, it’s only a fleeting reference to him, but the cases always haunt Chandler. He’s infamous for all the wrong reasons. Here, though—here he’s just the one who authorizes overtime like it’s going out of style. He leads them all on wild goose chases they rarely win. The leads them into places none of them can ever really leave.

‘Nothing on at the moment, then?’

Rob’s comment brings him back to the room, over-aware.

‘I know you can’t say. Just thought you look like you’re at a bit of a loss without a case to think about.’

(He probably is.)

‘Yes,’ Chandler begins, a bit unsure of his answer. ‘No, we’ve been lucky these past few weeks.’

Riley chuckles in the face of his attempt at diplomacy. ‘If you count being bored stiff as lucky, boss.’

‘What was that you were saying before, Rob?’ Mansell asks. 

‘What? Oh, yes, that—my brother, Tim—’

‘Which one’s he?’

‘Over there, with the beard. You can’t miss him. He’s got the kind of face you could turn upside down and it would still function. Now, he’s got an even better line…’

Kent steers well clear of their conversation; he ends up chatting with Ed in hushed tones and with the occasional stern glance before he’s commandeered by Riley’s eldest. Chandler can understand why—he’s not sure why he’s still standing there, either, it isn’t as if they think he’s got anything to contribute to this retelling of everyone’s respective romantic beginnings—but Miles takes over and he’s got years to cover, so Chandler relaxes as he catches sight of Kent out of the corner of his eye every now and then.

It’s odd, that, isn’t it?

For someone to be the affliction and the solution all at once. 

Even so, he’d still be on edge even if they weren’t involved, so what point was there in worrying about it now? The only glimpse into what they’re keeping under wraps comes when Rob retells something that prompts laughter in the lot of them and Kent looks up from where he’s sat on the nearby sofa to see exactly what’s gone on; he gets Chandler’s gaze instead and gives a smile, a promise of something else.

How has he come to deserve that?

Chandler can’t help but laugh at the preposterousness of it all. 

*

On Monday morning Kent arrives to an empty office, and for a minute there he’s almost convinced he’d somehow missed the hour falling back. Then he remembers it’s the entirely wrong time of year for that and double-checks his watch against the computer clocks, but no, they’re all the same, so he’s really just the first to arrive. He doesn’t think that’s happened since before Chandler arrived. In all senses of the word. 

He can see why Chandler usually comes in so early. The place is almost peaceful before Mansell comes clattering in, half of the previous night still written all over his face. Miles trails in not long after, muttering something about _bloody ungrateful tykes_ and _the sodding school run_ , and Chandler slips in almost unnoticed amidst the clambering for coffee. Kent expects Riley’s arrival to be just as understated, but she saunters in with a Cheshire cat grin that doesn’t bode well for any of them. 

A slurping sound comes from behind Kent’s shoulder; Mansell’s won first rights to the coffeepot, evidently. ‘Morning.’

Her smile widens at Mansell’s half-sullen tone and Kent swallows around a modicum of guilt.

He looks up and grins at her, getting the inevitable greeting out of the way. ‘All right?’

As soon as he says it he regrets opening his mouth at all. Her barely controlled glee can’t be good news.

‘You’ll never guess what Rob asked me once everyone had cleared off and we’d put the terrors to bed.’

Kent responds with a dry, ‘I’m sure I can’t,’ and purposely doesn’t divert his attention from the traffic citation forms. 

‘If you and his nibs were shagging!’ 

Mansell’s eyes light up like someone’s struck a match behind them. ‘You’re taking the piss.' 

‘I’m not. I quote, “Your boss and the young’un—they aren’t together, are they?”’

‘That’s an image.’ Mansell snorts out a laugh from behind his oversized mug.

Kent’s tempted to snap something sharp to the both of them, or perhaps whack Mansell round the back of the head with the file in his hand, but he bites his tongue.

Riley chuckles as she settles at her desk, unbundling herself from her coat and scarf. ‘That’s what I said. He’s convinced, though. Says if it’s not happening now then it will eventually.’

(How on earth had he got all that from less than three hours of interaction? If anything Kent should be impressed—perhaps they should have him on as a detective, too—but his mouth’s gone terribly dry and the cappuccino he bought on the way in isn’t doing anything to help.)

Mansell grins and jostles Kent’s shoulder with his elbow. ‘You’ll be glad to know, eh?’

‘Sod off.’

It’s not a particularly eloquent response to what’s become the typical tease from Mansell; still, it’s effective, and the man doesn’t say anything else save an overdone shrug in Riley’s direction. Mansell might tease him about ‘finding a bird’, but that’s only because it pisses Kent off even more. He knows, has always known, probably could tell the moment they met (he can be oddly perceptive, when he feels like it) but he goes along with it just because he can. Either way, it’s bloody annoying.

‘What makes him say that, then?’ Mansell continues after a moment’s silence. ‘I can’t say I’ve noticed any underhand dealings, if you get my drift.’

‘That's the first good question you’ve had in a month. You should probably let me know,’ Kent interjects, voice stern, ‘so I can stop doing whatever it is that makes people think I’m carrying on with my boss. Not exactly something that’s handy to have making its way around the station.’ 

(He might as well try and get something out of this. If there’s something that’s changed, or more obvious, then he should try and find out what it is so he can tone it down. It can’t be anything Chandler’s done. In all likelihood it’s just Kent’s face doing what it’s always done when faced with Chandler, and what the rest of the team just sees as the usual harmless enamoured glances are recognized for what they really are by someone a bit more distant.) 

‘He couldn’t say exactly what it was. Just had a sort of feeling.’ Riley snickers and nods in Kent’s direction. ‘Just like you, eh, Kent?’

He groans and drops his head to his hands; after a sufficient pause he peeks through his fingers at her and sighs. ‘Not you, too.’ 

She shrugs, grinning like a mother who’s just managed to embarrass her child in front of their first crush, and says, ‘Can’t resist.’ 

‘Oh, God.’ Kent can’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all, even with the slightest of looks towards Chandler in his office, safely separate from this conversation.

Mansell glances back over his shoulder from where he stands at the end of Kent’s desk, and shrugs with the arm holding his coffee. ‘I can’t imagine him shagging anyone.’

Riley scoffs as she types in her password with one ungloved hand. ‘You’ve thought about it?’

Mansell flashes another of his wolfish grins. ‘Not very hard.’

Funnily enough, Kent doesn’t have to think that much to conjure up the memory of scraping his teeth over the pulse of Chandler’s throat, wringing out an intoxicating, embarrassing sound that he really doesn’t need ringing in his ears at the moment. Nor does he need to confuse the way Chandler speaks to them as a team with the way he changes his voice when they’re alone, switches to a tone that’s meant for a lover’s ear in the dark. He doesn’t need to remember the feeling of Chandler pressing his tongue into Kent’s suprasternal notch, the way Kent had whimpered and clutched at his shoulders. He needs no reminder of how Chandler chased Kent’s body with his own, pulling Kent back down over him with insistent hands in his hair. 

‘Can we just—’ Kent shuts his eyes and raises a halting hand. He has to physically stop himself from pinching the bridge of his nose; that would be telling. ‘Can we just stop?’ 

‘I wouldn’t worry, Em,’ Mansell says with faux concern as he ruffles the back of Kent’s hair. ‘You’re probably bonking in a parallel universe.’

Kent wonders if he’s allowed to enforce common sense with a shovel.

‘Piss off!’ he snaps, batting Mansell’s hand away, before muttering, ‘Wanker,’ as an afterthought.

Mansell’s responding bark of laughter echoes through the room, and might even bring a small smile to the edge of Kent’s mouth.

*

The first thing that Kent says when he and Chandler are alone is, ‘Someone’s noticed.’ 

Chandler freezes where he stands, coat halfway down his arms and burgundy scarf hanging lopsided. ‘What? Who?’ 

‘One Mr Robert Riley.’

The fact that he doesn’t do anything about his disarrayed clothes is a testament to how much that shocks him.

‘ _How_?” 

Kent shrugs and tugs on the shoulder of Chandler’s jacket; the DI lets him draw it off his arm. ‘He guessed. Riley thinks it’s an absolutely hilarious suggestion.’

Chandler plainly disagrees; he stands there, agape, as Kent unhooks the scarf from around Chandler’s neck and loops the cashmere around the collar of his hung-up coat. He only vaguely recovers as Kent rests a hand against his jaw for a moment, a brief touch of familiarity that draws him a bit further away from the trail of imagined panic he’s about to go down.

‘Just thought I’d warn you ahead of time, in case they start throwing innuendo at you, too,’ Kent says with a smile, his hand trailing across Chandler’s shoulder as he walks through to the DI’s kitchen.

He only speaks when he decides to follow. ‘They don’t usually do that.’

‘They do, you just don’t always notice.’ 

The playful smile Kent shoots over his shoulder doesn’t quite meet its target; Chandler’s behind him but he’s closed-off, thinking. Thinking too hard about something Kent’s just seen as an embarrassing inconvenience that’ll blow over before long. But the more he considers it, the more he looks at it from the same jumpy place where Chandler’s stuck, the more he can see that yes, this could be a problem. A real one. It’s all jokes now, but they’re looking, aren’t they? They’re only after more ammunition for their humour but they could uncover so much more. 

Kent swallows hard as he searches for the box of his teabags that have found their way into Chandler’s cupboards. Even that feels like a telling sign, now; what if Miles found them? He’d know. That man always knows, eventually. If he doesn’t he won’t rest until he does. 

‘Do you—’

Chandler breaks off, as if he’s only just been able to rein himself in. 

‘What?’

(He knows he has to, but Kent’s almost frightened to ask.)

Chandler takes another deep breath and speaks to the toaster. ‘Do you think we should say something?’ 

Kent’s tempted to say, _Not if you want to keep your job, sir_ , but doesn’t. He’s careful instead.

‘What do you mean?’

‘I don’t know.’ He sounds lost, like he does when he really doesn’t know; it’s the same odd lilt that they get at dead ends, when they’re desperate for a breakthrough but they’ve got no leads. ‘It’s just if people are noticing—’

‘One person has.’ Kent says, deciding the best way to go about this is to (try) and nip it in the bud. ‘And only because he’s looking at it from a different distance. Everyone else just puts this down to my being smitten like I always have been and you being oddly unaware like you always have been.’

When he doesn’t get any sort of answer, he glances over his shoulder and finds Chandler looking at him with a distant and disbelieving expression.

Kent overdoes a sigh and shrugs when the look doesn’t go. ‘It’s not as if they’re about to find us shagging on your desk, is it?’

Chandler flinches at the thought. Kent scolds himself as he reaches for the kettle—that was blunt, more so than he needed to be. He knows it sounds like he’s trying to find a way out. He is, actually, but for Chandler; it’s his panic talking, isn’t it, he can’t possibly want to tell someone ( _anyone_ , even one of their own) that he’s shagging one of his DCs. Kent hasn’t thought he’d ever be comfortable with that, and he’d come to the conclusion that if they kept going on like this then that’s fine for him as well. He doesn’t need to flaunt every bit of happiness he finds.

(But if Chandler’s found the words to pose the question, that means he’s been thinking about it for a lot longer than he’ll let on. Shit. Where does that leave them?)

‘Kent.’ 

‘Hmm?’

‘Are we that obvious?’

‘I don’t think so.’

He doesn’t say that it’s getting more difficult to revert from their casual interaction to the subordination in the office, more and more difficult to remember to keep his face neutral. His expression’s less hopeful, faraway admiration now and just plain affection; the others would notice in a heartbeat. There are cracks. They’re not the sorts of things they can patch up. They’re there now, they’re going to have to keep going. That thought brings a modicum of panic to the back of Kent’s throat, more on Chandler’s behalf than his own, but if they’ve fucked anything up they’ve already done it so what’s the point in worrying now?

A sharp intake of breath comes from Chandler’s direction. ‘What about Ed? Is Ed that obvious?’

‘He can be,’ Kent says, trying to keep his voice steady and reassuring as he turns back to face Chandler from across the kitchen. ‘But I don’t think he has been. Did you see him at all today? I’m pretty sure he’s just got stuck into a new batch of political murders from the eighteenth century, or something. We’re old hat to him now.’

Chandler shoots him another disbelieving look, and that’s probably the closest to humour they’re going to get tonight. 

Kent returns it with a lopsided smile. ‘Trust me, if it comes down to us or whatever project he’s working on at the moment, the research will win hands-down.’

‘That’s what worries me.’ Chandler’s voice does honestly sound concerned. ‘He’s liable to say anything because he’s preoccupied.’

‘I’m not sure why he’d be saying anything. Or why anyone would be asking.’

Chandler sighs and scrapes a palm across his face. ‘I can’t be doing with this anymore.’

‘Joe?’ Kent’s stomach drops about seven metres; he suddenly feels a bit sick.

(The way Chandler looks at him—like he’s scared—makes Kent think he might _actually_ be sick.)

‘I’d like—’ Chandler fumbles as he begins. Each word wraps Kent’s stomach in a tighter knot until Chandler looks at him with wide eyes and he realises he’s looking to him for some sort of solace. ‘I’d like us to control when and where and to whom this information comes out, Kent.’

He can’t help but think _If you’ll excuse the pun_ but he doesn’t say that, either, because he understands the sentiment.

Kent props his chin on his hand, elbow against the counter, as the kettle boils behind them and Chandler’s strained gaze meets his own.

‘Who did you have in mind?’

*

They wait until Mansell’s dragged Riley off in search of the closest Pret-a-Manger.

When Chandler had said Miles, Kent had to admit that it made sense. Even he’s noticed that the sergeant’s been giving them side-eyes for days, despite the amount of time he spends joining in with Mansell’s prodding. He’s bound to put two and two together eventually, he’s not an idiot and the idea’s in his head now. They’d best straighten that out before anything happened to it. The more folds in something, the bigger it gets. Or something like that.

So that’s how Kent finds himself hovering just inside the glass walls of Chandler’s office, mouthing a final ‘You sure?’ before getting a solemn nod in return. Kent swallows, steels himself for the inevitable, and turns to stick his head and shoulders out through the open doorframe. 

‘Skip?’

Miles doesn’t look up, just turns a page in the battered copy of Metro he’s reading. ‘Hmm?’

‘The boss wants a word.’

That gets his attention.

‘What, cat got his tongue, has it?’ 

Kent doesn’t say a word. Most of the time time Miles doesn’t expect a response to his offhand comments, but Kent’s reticence earns him a suspicious glance as the sergeant approaches. He’s tempted to gulp but that would be noisy and far too telling. He doesn’t even want to look behind him and see how Chandler’s holding up; in the best case scenario, he’s turned green, and in the worst he’s keeled over.

He steps back from the doorway as Skip strides through, slinks away to where he’d stood a moment before with a hand in his pocket. He keeps his eyes down, latched onto a scuff on the toe of his shoe and the foot of the closest chair, but a quick glance towards Chandler reveals a tensed jaw Kent knows will catch up with him later. 

Miles sidles up to the visitor’s side of the desk without half the questioning look Kent would have expected. ‘Now I know you haven’t called me in here to tell me that you an’ him are giving it a go, no matter what Mr Riley seems to think, so what’s this about?’ 

Kent can’t help but laugh at the horrified look on Chandler’s face.

‘Actually, Sarge,’ he begins, saving Chandler from having to find the words he’s just lost. ‘That’s exactly why.’

(Might as well rip the plaster off all in one go.)

Miles just looks at him, Chandler forgotten. ‘You’re kidding.’

Kent shakes his head; Chandler’s struck still, breath baited.

‘You’ve got to be joking.’

‘We’re really not.' 

‘That’s not even the bloody royal we.’ 

Kent feels like saying they’ve got evidence, if he needs proof, but even that’s just a momentary madness and he’s not unbuttoning his collar within a mile radius of the station.

‘Well, I suppose we have to miss things sometimes.’ Miles says, digging for something to salvage as he lowers himself into the closest chair. ‘My _God_ —Christ.’

‘Miles…?’ Chandler begins, though he trails off in favour of a tentative swallow. ‘Are you—’

‘Am I shocked? Yes.’ The answer slips out easily, though the look on Miles’ face suggests some deeper introspection. ‘Surprised?’ He pauses as if considering. ‘No.’

‘Pardon?’ 

(Chandler’s reverted back to the very polite tone that has a tendency to sound affronted.) 

Miles rolls his eyes as if it was all obvious from the get-go, now he’s recovered. ‘I mean, I knew you both weren’t in complete control of your faculties when it came to each other but I’d never have expected anything to come out of it.’ He flicks his eyes to Chandler. ‘I mean, come on, you must have known I knew. Poor Kent’s been putting up with my jokes about him for _years_!’

Chandler clears his throat but it doesn’t do much for the stunned croak. ‘Is that why you kept asking…?’

‘Yes, partly.’

‘You knew before I did, then.’

‘That’s something.’

Kent’s got very little idea what they’re talking about but there’s a degree of satisfaction to Miles’ voice that suggests he’s known this would happen a lot longer than either of them did. From the way Chandler looks at him and shakes his head suggests that maybe he’s putting the pieces together now and seeing what Skip means. Hindsight’s a bitch, Kent’s always known that. It doesn’t make the sting go away.

Miles looks between them like he still can’t quite believe it. ‘I mean, you’ve got enough black marks on your record and he’s gone none.’

Except that’s not true, is it? Kent fidgets where he’s standing against one of Chandler’s bookcases. It’s true insofar as Chandler’s had an unfortunate string of failed major media-heavy cases, but those are on all of them, aren’t they? They worked those as a team. Kent was the last person to see one of their witnesses alive before she was killed one floor away from where they all stood around cracking open cans of Fosters.  If that’s not a black mark then Chandler’s record must be squeaky clean.

(Then again, he had wondered why there’d been no internal investigation. Not one he’d noticed, anyway. He half still expects one.)

Chandler just stares at his folded hands. A flush creeps up the back of his neck; for a moment, it brings an odd fond smile to Kent’s face. It doesn’t go unnoticed; Miles crooks a brow in his direction and laughs to himself as Kent immediately adopts a straight face.

‘Well, you certainly seem to managing. You’re working well together.’ Miles pauses, as if to wait for a response, but interrupts himself with a short barking laugh. ‘On all fronts, apparently.’

Chandler starts. ‘I assure you, Miles, I wouldn’t let any of this get in the way of our work—’

‘I wouldn’t think you would. Neither would he.’ He nods towards Kent. ‘You’re both too bloody bothered about the rules anyway. Mansell’s bent a few in his time.’ 

Kent winces. ‘I don’t need the mental image, thank you very much, Skip.’

‘None of us do, lad, but there’s a certain amount of collateral damage that comes from working with the man.’

‘Don’t need to tell me twice,’ Kent mutters amidst a resigned sigh.

Miles smirks and turns back to Chandler, who’s looking thoroughly confused with whatever it is they’re on about.

‘Dare I ask how long?’ he says with a matter-of-fact tone. ‘Purely for professional reasons. I should probably know how successful you’ve been at pulling the wool over our eyes.’

Kent does the math quicker than Chandler can; he’ll never forget the day, not really, and not for entirely pleasant reasons. ‘Four months, skip. Since your Millie’s first.’

Miles whistles, long and low, before turning to Chandler with raised eyebrows. ‘Definitely not a paper policeman, eh?’

There’s a smile that threatens to break through Kent’s carefully still face; Chandler’s proven himself to be something other than Miles’ initial diagnosis a hundred times over, but there’s something about using _them_ as another example that shines of an approval that Kent had only half-thought they’d get.

‘Very cloak and dagger, this. I take it you’re not planning on letting them know yet?’ Miles jerks a hand backwards towards the room of empty desks. 

Chandler shakes his head. ‘Not quite yet, no.’

‘Probably for the best.’ Miles sounds as if he really doesn’t mind. ‘Riley will be disappointed she didn’t know from the beginning, though. Mansell will probably have a prolonged period of mourning for all the smutty jokes he’s missed.’ 

Kent scoffs. ‘He can wear black for a month, see if I give a toss.’

(Evidently he’s got stronger feelings about that particular part of this than Chandler. Still. He doesn’t have to put up with it all day, does he? Then again, he might now. Skip’s no better than the rest of them, really. Just a little bit more discreet.)

‘As you wish,’ Miles says with a slow nod and a steady gaze that slides between the both of them. ‘Though I suggest you don’t leave it too long. Job like this, something’s going to pull your secrets out into the open eventually.’

Chandler sighs as if the weight of the world’s been put back into his shoulders. ‘I am well aware, Miles.’

Kent reaches for him but thinks better of it and curls his tongue over the front of his teeth. It doesn’t escape Skip’s notice—nothing will now, sodding _hell_ —but he doesn’t mention it. He’s probably just storing it up for later, for some underhand comment that no one but him will understand and he’ll go so red that everyone will know something’s going on, but Kent stands with a straight back and defiant gaze as Miles gets to his feet with an overdone wheeze.

‘Is that is, then?’ he asks. ‘No more potentially cataclysmic developments I should know about?’

‘Not that I’m aware of,’ Chandler says, his tone almost as dry as Miles’ can get.

‘Good. I don’t want my heart going from the shock, you hear?’

Chandler doesn’t dignify that with an answer; Skip grins anyway as he gets up and moves back towards the open-plan mess of desks.

‘Oh, and Kent,’ he says, halting his careful steps with a calculated look behind him. ‘Take care of him. It’s your job to make sure he doesn’t get himself killed now.' 

Kent swallows, shrugs.

(As if he needs to be told twice. As if he ever needed to be told at all.)

‘I’ll do my best, skip.’ 

‘You generally do.’

Miles says it as if it’s the most unassuming truth in the world.

‘Now, come on, back to work, the both of you. Before the others get back and think we’ve spent the entire lunch hour gossiping like a bunch of sixth-formers.’ He jostles Kent’s elbow with a wide crooked smile. ‘They’ll be ever so jealous.’ 

*

It’s one of those restaurants where Chandler has to relinquish control of his coat to the doorman. 

It always is, and he hates each and every one of them. 

He’s got his usual table, too. Even in the myriad of restaurants he frequents it’s always the same _usual table_ , one in the centre so he can keep an eye on everything around him, a conveniently placed window so he can keep the other on outside as well. It’s always unnerved Chandler, even since he was a teenager, but he understands it now, policeman to policeman. (That doesn’t make it any less menacing.)

Commander Anderson stands as he approaches, carefully pushing his chair back with no sound. He extends a hand; Chandler takes it.

‘It’s been too long, Joe.’

The unspoken _I promised your father_ hangs in the air between them, but Commander Anderson had promised his father a great many things and Chandler’s always accepted that fact. It’s the assumption, now.

‘I trust your year’s begun well?’

Chandler does the same thing he does every time he’s faced with that question: an amicable half-smile, a noncommittal shrug. After all, the Commander would know anything that’s gone on at the station as far as cases go, and the only other thing that’s changed is very much not his concern.

‘And yours?’

‘Well enough.’ He motions to the table with a hand out of formality, and they both take their seats. ‘It doesn’t take long for things to devolve into a logistical nightmare.’

Chandler doesn’t ask. The Commander enjoys the occasional cryptic comment; he’s learnt not to worry about them as much as he once did. They go through the motions, the typical orders, the familiar dishes. They’re quite similar in their tendencies, really; perhaps that’s why he’s unnerving, sometimes. Chandler wonders if he does that to people. Maybe he should ask Kent.

(Maybe he should stop thinking about Kent in that particular capacity while he’s having lunch with a man who is still, essentially, his superior.)

They fall into the same conversations as they do every time. Chandler tries to steer everything closer to the Commander’s side of the tale; he’s got more to tell, on all fronts. They haven’t had much to do with one another bar these awkward conversations ever since the Krays, but even Anderson knows that Chandler keeps his cards close to his chest, even with those who consider themselves close. To be honest, if he thinks about it’s he’s probably told Miles more about himself. The Commander knows about him, of course, but that’s just thanks to the length of their acquaintance. He wouldn’t, if Chandler had had anything to say about it. Miles—well, Miles, he’d told. He’d told Kent, too, just not in as many words.

‘Ever thought of leaving London?’ Anderson asks in a lengthening pause. He doesn’t betray any shock at Chandler’s ambushed look. ‘I did say _wherever_ they may be.’

‘No. No, I couldn’t.’ Chandler surprises himself by saying it with quite so much certainty. ‘I wouldn’t want to leave my team.’

‘Well, if you ever change your mind, let me know.’ The Commander even manages not to look dubious. ‘There’s a lot of paperwork they’ll make me do, so best to start early.’

Chandler nods absentmindedly, more because it’s the thing to do rather than any agreement with the sentiment. It’s true; he doesn’t want to go. He won’t, if he doesn’t have to. He’s not sure what department would have him, anyway. He’s a walking trail of failed major cases, a police force nightmare and a press scapegoat. It doesn’t matter how good he is at his job. All that’s down somewhere, not necessarily on paper, but Chandler can’t think of any DCI who’d want to take him on voluntarily.

‘You’re still with the same sergeant, aren’t you?’ 

‘Who, Miles?’

It’s almost odd to think of them all as their ranks. He hasn’t really realised it, but he hasn’t done it for months, has he? 

‘Yes. Didn’t he have another baby recently?’ 

‘Well, he didn’t. His wife did.’

Chandler can’t help himself; it’s Miles rubbing off on him. It has been almost four years, after all.

‘Evidently.’ The Commander fixes him with a look that’s uncannily similar to his father. ‘Are you sure he’s still up to scratch? A toddler at that age can run a man aground.’

‘He’s fine.’ Even Chandler turns gruff that the suggestion, just like he had with Mina. There’s no need for it, after all. ‘They’ve already passed the awkward stage.’

‘Have they now?’ 

There’s a curve in Anderson’s raised eyebrow that tells him his dubious of how involved Chandler is with all of them. But he should have known, he saw them all in Buchan’s house, he organized their entire rendezvous. That isn’t something you’d do with just any team. That’s something you’d do with a team like Chandler’s. His father wouldn’t have stood for that sort of sentimentality, and Chandler suspects the Commander doesn’t either, but he’s always been a man who felt too much, hasn’t he?  

So Chandler just hums in agreement and spears some spinach with his fork. 

Anderson seems as if he’s finished with this particular train of thought, until: ‘This DC Kent… remind me, is he one of yours?’

Chandler swallows clumsily. ‘Yes. He’s been with me since the Ripper.’

(He’s not sure where this is going, but the leaden weight in his stomach suggests it can’t be good.)

The Commander shrugs, seemingly convinced of something. ‘That must be it, then.’ 

‘What?’

‘There have been some… suggestions,’ Anderson considers his words carefully, studying the back of his fork, ‘that your relationship is not entirely professional.’ 

Chandler goes straight off his food, but he keeps eating. He doesn’t have much of a choice.

‘Not official ones. I’ve only just got wind of them—canteen gossip, if you ask me. Complete bollocks, of course, I said so at the time. I mean, really, _you_?’ 

He does allow himself a laugh at that, and not one of the false ones Chandler’s seen thrown across a table at a particularly troublesome bureaucrat. Its honest reflection of absurdity sets Chandler more on edge than he was already, but he can’t do much about that when Anderson quietens then chances another look at him and chuckles for a second time. (Chandler can’t quite understand why it’s disheartening.)

Anderson gathers himself, not that he’d really gone very far at all but it’s the most unabashed amusement Chandler’s seen come out of him in years. ‘But if he’s been on your team that long, as I said, that’s probably where it’s come from. You’d expect a bit more movement from a young officer but it’s not too unusual for them to stick with one DI. The rumour mill’s really scraping the barrel.’

Chandler agrees. If they’re going after his romantic entanglements that means they’ve exhausted his failures as a detective and his problematic habits, and those are numerous enough to keep most gossips going for decades. As much as that sort of blather’s common, dropping suggestive innuendos is a playing-for-points game in Whitechapel station and that’s where Chandler had expected it to come out, but Miles hasn’t taken advantage. Neither has Ed, not that he’d notice if he did; most of it flies quite literally over his head, since he’s rarely out of the archives for more than twenty minutes at a time. He supposes the rest of the station could have overheard the team’s joking, their pseudo-romantic prodding, but even then it’s obvious they’re speaking in the realm of comedy instead of reality. No one could have come to the conclusion that they were involved just from an ill-placed comment from Mansell or Riley.

(They’re still safe, aren’t they?)

It doesn’t matter that he isn’t saying anything. It would be a hundred times more telling if he’d received that news as if it was water off a duck’s back; even the Commander knows when he should be flustered and when he shouldn’t be. Even if they hadn’t been right, even if he hadn’t woken slowly that morning with a numb arm and Kent pressed against his side, even if it was a load of old bollocks peddled by an overly keen lunch lady, he’d be struck dumb. So it doesn’t matter that he’s currently floundering, trying to find the right way to contradict the Commander without coming across as overly defensive.

(Chandler knows he has a tendency to overcompensate.) 

‘Might want to keep one ear to the ground,’ Anderson says, underlining the suggestion with an arched brow and a shrewd expression. ‘And have a word with whoever’s wondering aloud, hmm?’

‘Of course.’

The Commander fixes him with a short, sharp look, although Chandler can tell there’s no suspicion in it. They’ve known each other for long enough, after all, and he knows what it’s like to be questioned by him. Still, it almost sends a cold, uncomfortable shiver down his spine because it’s too close, far too close, and an intelligent man like Anderson still thinks it’s miles off. That doesn’t bode well, does it? The very plausibility of _them_ is apparently further down the line than the proverbial odd couple.  

Chandler swallows and wishes his sparkling water was scotch. 

Maybe the thought shows, because the Commander watches him for a moment with narrowed eyes, but in the end he just turns back to the end of his salmon and issues what may, perhaps, be an order. 

‘Sort it out.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: 02 January 2014.
> 
> Hope you all have a lovely end to 2013! :)
> 
> Again: thank you so much for the kudos, comments and support. I couldn't ask for anything better. <3


	10. Chapter 10

It would just be Chandler’s luck that a body gets called in that very afternoon.

The air is so cold and sharp he can smell the blood in his nose as he walks down the street towards the address Miles had read out to him over the phone, leaving his car in the nearest space he could find.

Miles meets him on the corner, face like thunder as he glances up from beneath his turned-up coat collar at the clouds threatening to break at any moment. ‘Meeting go well?’

Chandler shrugs. ‘Enough.'

(No. It went dreadfully, even if he’s the only one who realises. It’s going to stay that way.)

Miles doesn’t push, just turns on his heel with a indifferent noise. Chandler follows, hands in his coat pockets against the wind.

The sergeant nods towards one of the terraced houses set back from the street; the tiny front garden’s already filled to the brim with the neon police cordon. ‘Kent and Riley are already inside with Caroline. Mansell’s talking to one of the techs.’ 

‘Pretty, is she?‘ 

Miles huffs a laugh. ‘Well out of his league.’

It’s against his nature to joke at crime scenes, but they all do it. None of them laugh too hard, or too loudly, but there’s an unspoken agreement that they leave their distress, their malaise for later—for where they’re unnoticed. It’s something the Commander had told him stood in his kitchen when he’d first entered CID as a fresh young face with only half the worry lines he has now; the victims—the ones left behind as much as the body on the floor—don’t want their feelings. They want them in control, commanding, decisive, not reverent and sentimental. They might think they want their sympathy, but they don’t; they want their ability, their expertise. 

That’s probably where he first went wrong.  

‘Professor John Howell, forty-two, married for twelve years, two kids,’ Miles begins as they approach, offering a quick nod to the uniform who lifts the tape out of a mixture of politeness and duty. ‘The next-door neighbour found him; he was returning a book he’d borrowed, saw the body through the window in the front door. Nasty shock for mid-morning.’  

Chandler ducks his head. ‘Has uniform been through?’

‘No, for once they haven’t trampled everything out of place. One of the competent ones was closest, stopped any contamination.’

‘That’s something. SOCO?’

‘They’re in there now. We’re authorized to go in, no need to hang about in the cold longer than we have to.’ As if to underline his words, a gust of wind barrels down the street; Miles grimaces and makes for the front door. ‘Come on, boss.’ 

Chandler barely makes it over the threshold before he has to maneuver himself over a toppled hatstand; before they make it any further Miles shoves a crime scene suit in his direction. They’re all out of order, they probably should have climbed into them before stepping foot inside but Chandler barely registers. Kent hovers somewhere on the periphery of his vision, speaking in hushed tones to Riley as she leafs through a pile of post with double-gloved hands, and although all he’s done is looked up at him for a split second’s worth of recognition the Commander flashes back to the forefront of his mind, his words and his half-hearted warning. Chandler loses his grip on the zip; Miles shoots him a look as he swears under his breath. He ignores his sergeant and swivels his gaze to the scene before them instead.

It isn’t much better.

It’s definitely not easier. 

It’s a crime scene dappled with bits of brain and blood spatter washed in a watery sun, the occasional shaft of light tinted jewel-toned by the coloured glass pattern in the door. Howell’s splayed at the foot of the stairs, one arm flung out to the side of him while the other’s smothered by his deadweight—ghost-blue, his face white and slack-jawed amidst the puddle of crimson. Chandler gulps but forces himself to keep looking, just like he always does, noting the awkward angle of one ankle and the dark blotched stain at the neck of his dressing gown.

The techs just get on with it, smooth through the disarray of someone else’s life, passing around evidence bags and handling them like they’re made of soap bubbles. They have protocol to follow, procedures. So do they, really, but it’s different. They have certain tasks to complete, certain steps. Chandler his team think. Look, and think. They’re just left with the seconds of screaming silence, the grain of the wood almost obliterated by clotting red, the ghosts trapped in bloodstains. When he next shuts his eyes it will still be there, like indelible ink on the inside of his eyelids, another in a line of scenes he’ll never quite be able to forget. 

He doesn’t know where to look now. He’d normally look to Kent, a shifted glance over his shoulder while they leaf through possessions, through the scene, but even the thought of doing that with the Commander’s words still echoing in his ear makes him think he’s about to heave. He can’t have that now, can’t have that in any situation where he’s supposed to be taking the lead and making the decisions. He can’t have a clouded head, not now, not even for him.

‘What’ve we got?’

Kent’s looking at him, he can tell; he’s probably frowning, too (he knows, he always knows) but Chandler keeps his gaze fixed on Llywellyn. She notices his fixedness, but doesn’t comment.

‘At first glance,’ she begins as she gets to her feet, ‘an luckless event in which a man’s accidentally fallen down the stairs.’ 

Miles shuffles. ‘And in the second?’ 

‘Occam’s razor isn’t always an honest witness, Ray.’

‘Not an accident, then? ’ 

‘I can’t be certain, you know that.’ Llywellyn says as she gives them the same stern face she always does, complete with the faux-derisive glance, ‘but no, I wouldn’t say so. I wouldn’t be comfortable labeling this as an accidental death.’

Miles nods. ‘Walk us through it.’ 

‘I’m relatively confident putting cause of death as blunt force trauma to the back of his head, but that couldn’t have come from the fall. You just wouldn’t have enough momentum for that sort of injury.’

Mansell appears from one of the open doorways. ‘Are you saying hitting your head on a banister falling downstairs can’t kill you?’

‘Far from it,’ Llywellyn says turning her head towards his approach, Kent following close behind. ‘It’s perfectly possible, it’s just not probable. Look at fall dynamics—I’ve got Elliot doing the calculations now, the poor sod’s freezing himself out in the garden but he’s the absolute best we’ve got with maths. Most of the time the angle of impact’s glancing, and with that you’d need a significant amount of additional damage. You see it most often where there’s a turn in the stairs. You see—’ She steps back and gestures towards the staircase, carefully side-stepping on the young tech behind her. ‘Relatively speaking, a body falls down a staircase goes in a straight line, but if you fall approaching from one side or the other you’ll fall at an angle going in a direction opposite from your starting point.’

She wiggles her hand in the general direction, but Chandler can’t follow. Kent’s eyes keep flicking from her to him and back again; how’s he supposed to focus? They’ll have to come back later, when everything’s been bagged up and untaped, released, and get someone to act it through. Preferably not him. 

‘Every time you bounce, it’ll throw you off a straight line. But that’s all the theoretical stuff, all assumptions in a perfect world. Then you’ve got to factor in everything else: weight, height, build, clothing, sobriety…’ She trails off. ‘That’s why we’ve got Elliot.’

Kent walks closer to them and cranes his neck to get a better look up the narrow staircase. ‘But you still don’t think this was just an unfortunate misstep?’

‘No. Even with all that—and we can get all of that with quite a high degree of scientific certainty, I might add, and we can compare it all with the body given enough time—I don’t think so. Look here.’ 

They follow her pointed finger, her hovering almost-touch as she crouches next to Howell and wafts a gesture around the back of his head. Chandler gulps and tries not to breathe; the blood’s bad enough, the messiness of all of it, but she’s right. Where they should only find flesh and bone with a layer of slippery red there are jagged additions, vaguely wooden in nature but Chandler can’t look too closely, not until the morgue. His mouth dries at the sight and he snaps back to standing up straight, swallowing. The air’s metallic and busy, overwrought by plastic and processed paper bags and chemical kits. He almost longs for the gusts of wind outside, the reassurance that the world is bigger than he is.

‘Are those… splinters?’ Kent scowls.

Mansell makes a dissenting sound from where he’s leant over Kent’s shoulder. ‘Bit big for splinters, don’t you think? Wouldn’t want one of those lodged in your finger.’ 

‘I can’t say what they are, or where they’ve come from, but I can tell you they’ve not come from the banister itself. There’s a bloodstain where he did hit his head on the way down, but no splintering of the wood. These have come from something else, something thrown with considerably more force.’

Kent frowns, and his paper suit rustles sharp in Chandler’s ears as he folds his arms across his chest. ‘So, someone smacked him around the back of the head with something wooden that they’d thought matched the banister, to try and make it look as if the fatal wound had been from when he’d hit his head?’ 

Llywellyn nods. ‘Er, bang-on, as they say.’

‘It’s a preliminary course of inquiry,’ Chandler corrects, voice just that bit too sharp.

Kent looks away. It sends a pang of regret through Chandler’s chest, but he can’t do anything about that. Riley pokes her head around the nearest open doorway and breaks the odd, thick silence.

‘Skip, boss,’ she says in lieu of a greeting, and gestures into the room. ‘Have a look at this.’

Chandler looks back to the pathologist. ‘Is that all for now?’

She nods. ‘Pop by later for a full report. A few hours should do it. Tomorrow morning at the latest.’

‘Thanks, Caroline,’ he manages, but she gives him a look that suggests she can see through him.

(She probably can. She’s always been uncanny that way.)

Chandler follows Miles’s suit, backstepping carefully over the disrupted area until he can maneuver himself closer to the doorway and look inside. The room is neat, tidy; there are a few books strewn about in odd piles but nothing that strikes him as odd. Then again, there rarely is. 

Miles huffs and leans in, careful not to disturb anything too much. ‘This his office?’

‘Yeah,’ Riley says, stepping aside so he and Chandler can move further into the room, Kent and Mansell bringing up the rear. ‘There’s another upstairs, apparently, but we can’t get up there until they’ve finished swabbing the stairs—you know, finger prints, shoe smudges, footprints, the lot. The earliest’s probably tomorrow at this rate.’ 

‘ _Two_?’ Miles scoffs, glancing around in a way that’s supposed to emphasize how small the house is. ‘Bit presumptuous with his space, isn’t he?’ 

‘I’ve been told by one of the techs—Julie, lovely girl; Mansell, don’t even think about it—that upstairs looks a little more like a library or an archive of sorts. Much smaller than this room, if that’s even possible. I’d bet this is where he spent most of his time.’ She rests her hands on her hips and glances around, at the high windows and equally high bookshelves. ‘Ed would be thrilled.’

Chandler’s sure he would be, but he can’t quite stand the way Kent’s hovering next to his elbow with a careful expression that says more than he’s comfortable with so he just moves in closer, carefully picking at papers and files just in case anything catches their eye. Miles almost gets a heavy hardback on his foot when he accidentally dislodges a carful bundle at the corner of the table, narrowly avoiding smashing a half-full bottle of ink. 

He gives the offending volume a stern glance. ‘Shouldn’t we be looking through his post? I doubt all this academia will throw anything up.’

‘It already has, skip.’ Mansell snickers. ‘It only just missed you.’

‘Sod off.’

‘I’ve had a look through what’s on the side table,’ Kent offers from where he’s crouched, head tilted to read the spines on the lower rungs of the bookcase. ‘There’s nothing obvious, no bills with massive red “ _overdue_ ” stamps, if that’s what you’re looking for. Just one or two personal letters, something from Senate House, something else from—what was it?’

‘Something from a publishing house, I think,’ Riley fills in. ‘Looked like a royalty cheque to me.’

Miles nods at nothing in particular. ‘Make sure those get through in the first batch of evidence, we’ll start with those.’

It’s only when Riley heaves one of the heavy wood drawers open and gasps that they find anything worth looking at; the thing’s full, almost overflowing. The papers—half crisp and new, the others creased and torn—would definitely be flying off of their own accord if it wasn’t for the heavy paperweight in their center, a smoothed pebble that looks like one from a beach Chandler thinks he may have been to as a child.

Riley clucks her tongue. ‘A clean desk is a sign of a cluttered desk drawer.’

‘Christ’s sake,’ Mansell mutters from somewhere beside her as he tries another drawer. ‘Busy fella.’

Kent sounds almost desperate as he gets to his feet to peer over their shoulders. ‘There must be some sort of system.’

‘We’ll get Bletchley Park straight on it,’ Mansell says, deadpan. 

Chandler glances up to catch Kent just on the right side of saying something appropriately pointed when there’s a creak of floorboards from outside and a young uniformed officer appears, face bright and eager as they all turn to look at him in an almost-eerie unison.

‘Sorry,’ he begins, but he doesn’t look sorry at all. ‘I just took a call from the station. They’ve managed to find the family. Wife and two children, they’re at his mother’s for the school break up in Derbyshire. He was supposed to join them at the weekend.’

‘Right,’ Chandler says, only half registering. He’ll have to look at that later. ‘Thank you, uh…?’ 

‘PC Fletcher, sir.’

‘Thank you, Fletcher.’

He doesn’t say any more, just turns back to whatever it is Miles has his nose in now. He can feel the officer hovering behind them for a moment, like a ghosting itch, but he turns on his heel and leaves them to it before long. He can tell Kent’s fidgeting’s gone up a notch, too, although he’s trying to smother it; Chandler busies himself with the paraphernalia on the windowsill and attempts to ignore it. Even if he was in a better state of mind, now’s not the time. They can’t do anything about it. That doesn’t mean that Kent brushes past him, squeezing through the last remnant of moveable space, his back doesn’t stiffen and he doesn’t hold his breath.

He almost wishes he’s still oblivious, that he doesn’t know. But you can never unlearn what you want to, can you?

‘Get this bagged up,’ Chandler says offhandedly as he straightens to whoever happens to be closest to his shoulder.

‘Yes, sir.’

He tries to ignore the question in Kent’s voice, and turns on his heel in search of fresh, uncloistered air.

It doesn’t help him find an answer. 

*

‘This list, while exhausting, is not exhaustive.’ 

Ed shoves the papers he’s been cross-referencing in Kent’s general direction; he only just manages to grasp them all before Ed lets go completely. Kent shoots him a look—they’re probably all out of order now, it’ll take him hours to straighten them out at this rate—but Ed doesn’t see it. He’s too busy staring at the whiteboard, Chandler and Miles looking between him and the words with expectant expressions. 

Chandler tries first. ‘What do you mean, not exhaustive?’

‘He’s a medievalist,’ Ed says again, as if that fact alone cracks the case. 

‘And?’

‘Doesn’t that explain it enough for you?’ Ed leans forward and peers over the top of his glasses at a particular list of references. Anglo-Scandinavian coinage, it looks like, but none of them are sure. It’s all Greek to them—or Latin, as the case may be, but even Chandler’s lost on that part. ‘You can’t possibly be exhaustive as a _medievalist_.’

Miles exhales a long-suffering sigh. ‘You’ll have to elaborate for us plebs, Buchan.’

‘There’s not enough to be exhaustive about,’ he continues, still peering at the names Kent’s just finished copying out from the forms. ‘I mean there’s plenty there to look at, plenty of primary source material and artefacts and the like, but no one’s really got the foggiest what they mean. There’s mounds of debate, loads of discussion, but no conclusions.’

‘Bit like us most of the time then,’ Miles mutters, shifting his own stance until he’s face-to-face with a photocopy of the notebook that had been left open on Howell’s desk, pen still poised to write when they’d arrived that morning.

‘Not exactly.’ Ed pauses and fixes Miles with a shrewd look. ‘Sometimes they’ve got more.’ He ignores everyone’s eye-rolling and runs a finger beneath a list of names. ‘These academics—they’re the ones he keeps referencing, aren’t they? In his notes and the rough manuscript?’ 

Kent hums in assent.

‘Most of them are familiar; these here—’ He circles the top three names. ‘Those are the classic arguments, they pop up in virtually every paper and book on the subject. The others aren’t as familiar. They might be more recent, possibly even still sentient enough to work. They may have even worked with Howell, depending on where they’re based. I can have a look around, if you’d like; see if there’s any who would have had the opportunity to meet up with him to discuss research or theories? They might have more light to shed on his work than his family.’ 

Chandler looks over at them, his expression one that suggests he’s surprised to find himself agreeing. ‘Good idea, Ed. How long do you think it’ll take you to narrow them down?’

Ed takes it as a challenge; he always does. ‘I’ll start straightaway.’ 

‘Take Riley with you,’ Miles calls after him. ‘Try and condense down Howell’s argument for her. One of us needs to have at least a general idea of what he was on about.’ Ed raises a hand in acknowledgement and catches Riley’s elbow as they pass in the doorway; Miles just shakes his head and mutters, ‘And she’s the most likely to not throttle you in the process.’

They ignore him for the simple fact that it’s the truth, especially when they’re just getting started like this. That, and the fact that Riley would probably find it interesting. Kent can’t tell if she’s just really good at putting up with Ed’s shenanigans or if she’s actually curious about what he has to say. (Probably a mixture of both.)

‘What does that say?’ Chandler leans towards Miles with one of the papers in his hands, finger pointed at a scrawled note.

Miles takes one look at it and shrugs. ‘I can’t tell. You’re the one who did the courses.’

‘They aren’t much use if I can’t even identify letters.’ Chandler brings it closer to his face, frowning, but gives up and shakes his head. ‘These are a mess.’ 

‘Personal, though, isn’t it? Noke-taking? Once you get into it you’ve got a bit of your own shorthand.’

Chandler hums. ‘You should have seen mine.’ 

For a moment, Kent’s hurt that he hasn’t. It’s irrational but there, real. He can’t quite shake it off, not really, not with the lightness of Chandler’s voice and the dry chuckle he gets from Skip. Kent turns back to the photographs, the piles of books and papers that look like they mean nothing at all but probably constitute an academic archive that would rival Ed’s. He doesn’t see them.

‘I think Judy’s still got my books from when I was in uniform somewhere in the attic,’ Skip continues. ‘Those look like they’re written in Morse code most of the time.’ 

‘I’m not especially surprised, Miles.’ 

‘Ta, sir.’

He’s got something like a stomach cramp, high up under his ribs, sweet and crawling. It’s been there ever since he’d laid eyes on Chandler at the scene, and it had nothing to do with the body that lay before them. It had everything to do with that split second when Chandler had looked at him and he’d looked haunted, like he’d just remembered or realised exactly how far wrong he’d gone. How much of a mistake he’d made. Then the look had gone, disappeared, wiped off his face in favour of something much more controlled, and Kent still can’t decide if that was for his benefit or the crime scene’s. 

‘Is any of this in order?’ Chandler’s voice is the same sort of indignant it had been when he’d first walked into their incident room amidst their crisp packets and open collars. ‘Our lot’s usually better than this.’

‘It wasn’t our lot. If I had to describe Howell, the phrase “couldn’t organize a piss up in a brewery” comes to mind.’

‘How on earth was he managing to work?’

‘You’ve seen Ed.’ Miles gestures vaguely towards the door. ‘Some people just work that way, as difficult as that may be for you to imagine.’ 

Chandler sighs and pinches the bridge of his nose. ‘Was any of this on his computer?’

‘Yeah, some scans, some documents. But they’re all labelled as backups, so there shouldn’t be anything on them that’s not already on our desks. Good thing, too; the tech boys will have a field day with this lot. We won’t hear from them for weeks.’ 

Chandler groans and reaches blindly for the first hardback on the stack of books they’ve left on the end of Mansell’s desk. He flicks through it, pages rustling, until he chooses a page at random and peers at the text. Kent can see out of the corner of his eye that there’s more handwritten on that page than there is typeface; whether or not they’ll be able to decipher it is another question altogether. 

‘So this guy has an affinity for marginalia?’ 

Miles looks up from the evidence bag in his hands. ‘For what?’

‘Marginalia.’ Chandler taps one photograph while looking at another. ‘Writing in the margins of books. One of Coleridge’s inventions.’ 

‘Writing in books?’

‘No, the word.’ 

‘What’s this Coleridge fella doing adding words to dictionaries?’ Miles only sounds half-interested. ‘They’re already too bloody heavy.’ 

‘Coleridge.’ Chandler pauses and turns to fix the sergeant with an incredulous look. ‘You know _, water, water everywhere, nor any drop to drink_?’

‘What _are_ you on about?’

Kent clucks his tongue between reading the papers in his hand and the writing on the board. ‘Rime of the Ancient Mariner, Skip.’ 

‘Not you, too.’

 He turns to grin at Miles but accidentally gets Chandler as well, and he knows the smile doesn’t quite reach the edges of his mouth. He has a feeling of wrongness creeping up his back, but he’s got an entire past of gathering up his fears and tucking them away somewhere safe.

This is how he’s always imagined it: the beginning of the end.

Chandler’s mouth is so serious.

Kent’s quick to turn back to the work, to the bits of someone’s life they’re pinning to a whiteboard and picking apart. Chandler and Miles return to their rambling observations in the hope that perhaps something will occur to one of them so they have something more to work with before the preliminary forensic reports come back, but Kent can’t bring himself to listen to closely. All he can think for those long moments is that when Chandler looks at him and he doesn’t get the usual feeling, something must be wrong—but equally wrong is his inability to tell exactly what it is. His chest echoes as hollow skeletons’ do as he stares at the photographs of Howell’s stacks of books and papers until his eyes slip out of focus; he shakes himself back into the room and returns to transcribing, but the letters wobble.

Miles stops talking as Chandler stalks away to his office, and turns to the room at large. ‘Right, who wants to man the tipline?’

Kent averts his eyes and redoubles his efforts to look busy.

‘No one? How surprising.’ 

*

Chandler lies staring into the cool darkness, overly conscious of the fact that his and Kent’s breathing is out of sync. He distracts himself from the swirl of thought in his head by trying to align each inhale, each exhale, but he can’t get enough air that way and he gives up with a short sigh, pressing the side of his face further into the pillow. Kent snuffles and pulls his arm tighter around Chandler’s chest, resettling almost as soon as he’s unsettled himself. Chandler glances down at him and brushes his mouth against Kent’s forehead in a disquiet kiss.

He still can’t quite believe how he got here. 

He knows how, though. Objectively, it was a series of mistakes and decisions he chose the wrong side of because the issue had been more than just ‘ _we shouldn’t do this_ ,’ hadn’t it? Anderson’s face tells him that from where he hovers on the edge of thought. Chandler screws his eyes up against the intrusion and tries to focus on the gentle puffs of air that warm the hollow of his throat, the thrum of Kent’s skin and the beat beneath but it all just reminds him and drives the point home. He can’t escape his own mind, can he? God knows how many times he’s tried.

Commander Anderson worms his way into Chandler’s head, his smirk and his utter disbelief. Chandler doesn’t know whether he wants to crush Kent closer to his chest or push him far, far away. And worse than both of the options is his reality, because Chandler freezes and does nothing about the panic welling up behind his ribs.

Then Kent makes a sleep-sodden sound, pressing close to Chandler’s shoulder in his sleep, and the unconscious nudge wipes the recollection clean. For a brief moment Chandler thinks of nothing, just tries to focus on the soft steady breathing that he can feel under his arm, the gentle warmth of Kent’s foot against the top of his own. But it doesn’t last, can’t last, and the weight that at first had seemed comforting is suddenly smothering, too close and too much and too true.

He could manage to bundle it down at the station, this surging feeling, when there are other things to occupy his mind. Even the Commander’s passing interest in his personal life couldn’t outweigh the demands of the burgeoning investigation, the phone calls to the family and the very preliminary interviews. He’d even been more himself around Kent when they’d got into the swing of things, and apart from the occasional nagging twinge at the periphery of his thoughts he’d been able to put it out of his mind. Or, he thought he had. Once or twice Kent had looked to him through the glass of his office, gaze unguarded and obvious in its suspicious concern, and Chandler had had to look away and lay his hands flat on his desk, the line of his fingers alongside all the others he’d put down to protect himself.

He hadn’t said anything about it; he couldn’t, there were no words yet. He’d just come out of his office long after the sun had set and they were relying on the flickering lights of the incident room, tinged green and pallor-inducing, and although he’d known somewhere in the back of his mind the door hadn’t slammed enough times for everyone except him to have gone home he was still surprised to find Kent sat at his desk pouring over the bagged notes. Chandler had just stood and watched for a moment, indulged some part of himself that felt foreign (as it once had before), and cleared his throat just as Kent flipped one page over with tired, sluggish fingers. 

‘Go home,’ he’d said, voice gentler but still sticking in his throat.

Kent had looked up at him, one canine still indenting his bottom lip, and seemed hesitant.

Chandler had just sighed and turned to grasp at Kent’s coat on the nearby hangers. ‘Come with me.’ 

Then he’d looked even more conflicted, but only for a split second. Chandler doubts the concrete thought as to why had even really entered his mind. But Kent had been getting to his feet and grabbing at the papers, the photocopies, the plethora of dense research that none of them were really equipped to take. Chandler hadn’t stopped him; how could he, when he was lugging home several of Howell’s dogeared books in a desperate attempt to ascertain exactly what pivotal point it was that his wife was now cursing.

Not that it had done much good.

For a moment he considers going back to the books, extricating himself from Kent’s sleep-determined grip and escaping to the kitchen with the ancient dusty volumes. There are a couple of well-thumbed paperbacks in there as well—he’d thought for a moment that perhaps Howell annotated all his reading, not just his academic work—but a quick flip through them earlier had told him that isn’t the case. Still, there’s a chance that he only did it sporadically, isn’t there? They might still tell them something. 

He shifts slightly, a slow pull backwards, as he decides he’ll have to get up, he can’t stay here like this and expect to get any sort of rest, but Kent stirs and purely out of reflex Chandler stills. The other man doesn’t wake, just nudges into the small amount of space Chandler’s put between them, and the DI gives up. He doesn’t quite relax into the embrace Kent leaves wrapped around his torso, not really, but there’s a little less tension there as he resignedly shuffles back. Kent burrows into Chandler's chest, gruffling slightly in his sleep, nose nudging his upper arm.

Chandler feels a pang of affection but swallows it down. He can’t, not now, it’s the wrong place and the wrong time. It always is, isn’t it? Christ. What the hell has he done?

That’s a loaded question.

A muffled police siren squeals on the road outside and Chandler tries to ignore how the sound makes his stomach knot, tries to remember why he’d done this at all and why the slight curve of Kent’s limp fingers against his spine gives him some inexplicable comfort, or why the thought of seeing him sat up pouring over his own pile of papers had made something in between his ribs twitch in painful sympathy.

He tucks Kent up against him like his chest tells him to, like the lump in his throat instructs. He expects it to hurt, to suddenly explain to him why this doesn’t make absolute, complete sense, but it doesn’t. Kent just twists into the curve of Chandler’s neck, his head slotting into place in the gap between skull and sheets, and before Chandler can think twice about it he rests his chin against Kent’s curls and sighs something that might—just _might_ —be considered contented.

*

Kent just wants to stop thinking. Just for a moment. Maybe five minutes.

Just long enough to get to sleep.

But that’s not going to happen, is it? He’s not even in his bloody bed, just sat in the kitchen staring at the time glowing green on the door of the microwave nursing a half-empty cup of instant coffee that went cold about an hour ago. He’s not even sure why, except it has something do with the case and the job and Chandler. Mostly Chandler. _Damn it_. 

He wasn’t supposed to let this happen.

(He has, though. He _always_ has. This isn’t the first time he’s sat up with Chandler stuck at the forefront of his mind.)

It’d be easier if he could just figure out what had happened.

He hadn’t expected an easy morning, but he hadn’t expected to be woken by Chandler shaking his shoulder either. He hadn’t expected to find himself the only one still underdressed, and even as he’d stood there in his suit and tie Chandler had just said in a monstrously level tone, ‘You’d better go.’ Then nothing had been right—absolutely nothing, with any part of his life.

Kent doesn’t know why it still bothers him. It shouldn’t, by all accounts it was true—but it wasn’t necessary, and maybe that’s where he’s getting stuck. All precedent (and _God_ aren’t they familiar with the importance of precedent?) would suggest there’d be no problem, there’s nothing to worry about with them. They’re spick and span all the way to the station and back, they always have been, so why did Chandler look at him with trepidation in his eyes, a set of his mouth that said he wasn’t happy with the way the morning had begun.

(Well, yeah, neither was Kent, but that was entirely different situation altogether, wasn’t it?)

He might as well have just said ‘get out,’ and been done with it. At least he’d know where he was up to with that. It had stung like rejection although he’d spent the night nestled in Chandler’s warm, expansive bed; for the first time it had felt as if they might not be what he thought they were, when he’d let himself out without any other acknowledgement. Then he’d done three days of thinking, about the case and about this and about _them_ and he can’t quite manage to stop.

Freddie had even brought him a cup of tea, and that’s a sure sign that all this thinking’s showing. That’s never a good thing; he’s got a heart of sand, and when it breaks it gets everywhere and you're never rid of all the grains, not really, not without a lot of time and a lot of effort. Kent's not sure he's got either of those to spare anymore. He’s just so fucking tired, and he can’t even manage to sleep. Not properly, anyway. Not since that morning, not since they’d realised the hatstand was missing an appendage and not since he and Chandler had spent three days speaking to each other in the fewest words possible. Kent doesn’t even know why he’s doing it too, why he’s joining in with whatever it is that’s made Chandler go like this, but there must have been a point where that was the only thing to do and they’ve passed it. 

Kent doubts he’ll get an answer if he asks. Not right now.

He’s not sure he’ll be able to handle the answer he’d get.

(He doesn’t need Chandler to tell him that.)

 _Shit_.

It wells up, this feeling—surges, creeps up on him like the tide. He doesn’t really realise he’s veered off into thinking about it before there’s another shot of vague panic or a long, diluted anxiety that lays just low enough for him to work until it’s his turn to make the tea and there he goes again. He can’t sleep either, not without wrestling with an amount of sheets that feels too big for him now or waking from a half-doze with what feels like a revelation seeping through his memory, only half thought and even less easily remembered. He lies there, feeling the thump of his heart against the mattress and wonders despite all the trouble that’s ever got him into. That, and he yearns; he hasn’t realised exactly how far he’d gone, exactly how much he misses Chandler’s sleeping deadweight beside him, how much the man’s lopsided smiles and downturned eyes had features in his days—and his nights. And, most of all, he hasn’t been able to tell if he misses Chandler or if he misses everything they had because somewhere, in that low, uncomfortable, truth-telling part of his stomach, he knows they’re running out of time.

Aren’t they?

And that’s probably the most telling thing, because he’s had enough time to think about it.

He can’t be doing with this. 

One night, when Kent had spent long enough staring at the gradual lightening of the space around his window, he’d just given up and _felt_. He hadn’t thought he could feel much more than he already had, in the long stretch of waiting between walking out of the station into dark, drizzly London and walking back in again, but when he stops trying to understand why and just leaves it to accost him he can feel the beginnings of embarrassed tears prick at his closed eyes. He hadn’t let them come, he couldn’t allow himself that, so he’d bitten his lip and drawn the the pillows close to simulate Chandler’s body. He’d wrapped his leg around the stack of pillows and felt frustrated with the poor analogue.

(He should have known it was a bad idea.)

He’d woken the next morning with a snap and a gasp, hot with alone. 

*

‘By all accounts, he seems like a lovely guy. A bit one-track-minded, but still. A nice guy.’

Kent feels like saying _Nice guys get killed all the time; wouldn’t it be lovely if only the ones who deserved it got something smashed into the backs of their heads?_ but he doesn’t. That’s not what Riley means, and he knows it.

He just stays quiet and keeps his gaze on the whiteboard. That’s what they’re all doing, anyway, at least until they get something else to go on. Right now they’re just relying on the hope for some sort of mental breakthrough, an epiphany moment akin to those Chandler’s had before—not that it’ll get them very far. Chandler’s buggered off somewhere; Kent’s trying to pretend he doesn’t care. Miles had heaved himself up and said ‘I’ll go,’ and they just let him get on with it. Riley and Mansell had exchanged significant glances that they thought Kent hadn’t seen, and he’d ended up drinking two cups of black coffee (the cheap kind they keep in for emergencies, not Chandler’s, not now) just to keep himself distracted with the bitterness.

‘Massive reading list, though.’ Riley sighs, undeterred. ‘The endnotes are almost as long as the manuscript itself.’

‘I don’t blame him. I wouldn’t want to see the backlash if he failed to reference properly.’ Kent folds his arms and scoffs, not in an entirely well-meaning way. ‘You think we’re hard on theft.’

‘He can’t have possibly had all of these in his house, could he?’ 

Ed pipes up from where he’s taken up residence at Riley’s desk. ‘They’re not all massive comprehensive volumes. Some are just articles; journals take up a lot less space than encyclopaedias. There’s electronic access, too.’

‘Except he’s not likely to have bothered with those, is he?’ Mansell says from where he’s sat behind them, voice dry. ‘He didn’t even draft the thing on the computer, everything’s by hand.’

Normally they’d think he was exaggerating—there must be something on his laptop, otherwise why would he have it at all?—but no, he was right. The tech boys still hadn’t gone through everything, still hadn’t searched every electronic nook and cranny, but even they would tell Chandler when he rung up ready to barter for information that the thing hadn’t even been switched on for two months.

‘I can’t keep all these Williams straight.’ Mansell turns a page with a frustrated sigh. ‘What am I looking for again, exactly?’

Ed doesn’t look up from his own book but answers anyway. ‘What we’re all looking for, Finlay: something.’

Kent feels the lump in his throat swell, but doesn’t move his eyes away from the board. Notnow.

‘They’re not cheap, either,’ Kent says, desperate to say something at the very least. ‘Not even the online ones. We’re not talking about a paperback from WHSmiths or a few issues of Private Eye here.’

‘But you would still buy the essential ones, wouldn’t you? The ones you use the most?’ Riley rolls a pen between her fingers, biting her lip instead of the cap this time. ‘Imagine having to give back one of your references right when you’re at a pivotal moment just because some tosser’s on a waiting list.’

Kent finds himself straightening his back in the ensuing pause, his mind working. ‘Unless you can’t.’ 

‘What?’

He ignores her and bends to check one of the specific lists of books Ed’s left blu-tacked to the whiteboard. When that doesn’t turn up what he’s looking for he walks over to the other end, skirting around Riley’s crossed ankles and skims through Chandler’s handwriting, looking for whatever it is that’s sparked his memory. He doesn’t quite know what it is, but he knows it when he sees it in the middle of the list of Howell’s personal belongings found with his body.

Kent turns on his heel and reaches over his desk for his coat. ‘Tell the boss I’ll be at the British Library.’

‘ _What?_ ’

Riley’s more confused than she should be; she’s alluding to another of the same question, but Kent doesn’t want to answer either.

His mouth works quicker than his mind. ‘If he wants to know more, he can ring me.’

He’s snapping, he knows, he does that occasionally. They don’t deserve it, they’re all on his side and they should be working as a _team_ , damn it, but all he can think now is that he needs to go. Needs to get out and fill his head with something that might actually lead to a sort of answer, something concrete. It had been raining earlier—cold, clammy—and as far as he knows it still is. It had lashed Kent’s face on the way in—it had made him feel better, of all things. Maybe it’ll do it again. 

He leaves his scarf hooked over the back of his chair, forgets the gloves he’s tucked in the left-hand drawer. His pockets will do, and he doesn’t want any of them getting any sort of sodding ideas. He just wants to _go_ and see if he can still do his job.

Riley’s voice follows him out, a casual question directed at Skip as he saunters back in, oblivious. ‘What’s the matter with him?’ 

Kent hopes Miles doesn’t say.

(He would hope Miles doesn’t know, but it’s too late for that.)

*

‘It’s not often we get an intellectual case. Killing someone over doctoral research? Bit rich for Whitechapel.’ 

‘Yeah, bit more than doctoral, though, wasn’t it?’

In the end, it had taken three phone calls and a well-timed visit to an obscure antiquarian bookshop. Chandler hadn’t expected such vitriol from a scholar. He’d said as much when they were booking Browning, just another part of the put-on banter of the interview room, and got such a cackling laugh in response that he wondered why he’d ever felt at home in a university. He definitely doesn’t remember it being this cut-throat.

Then again, it has been years. 

At the same time he does know he’s seen friendships fall apart like this, though perhaps not as catastrophically and certainly not over a theory as to the exact nature of kinship in medieval England. That does seem a bit specialist, even for them. But, objectively, he can see the strange, twisted logic that had gone into it. Browning’s crowning glory, the theory that made his name, had been on the cusp of being torn apart. A flaw in his argument, previously unexploited, had been laid bare in Howell’s upcoming piece. None of them can follow exactly what it was, only Ed has any sort of idea and he’s wittering on about it now to Mansell as the DC doesn’t even try to look interested, but it was there, and it would have ruined his magnum opus. (If that’s what you could call it.) His legacy.

The logic’s there. Chandler can almost empathize, and it makes him want to scrub himself clean twice over. He keeps replaying it in his head, the part where their respective understandings diverge. Browning went for a polite chat with an old friend and ended it with a killing, a coward’s hit from behind; Chandler stops at the disappointment, the self-loathing, the slow and creeping resignation to the inevitable.

‘I mean, the man’s obviously got problems.’

Miles’ voice brings him back, reminds him he’s holding a handful of files that need to be somewhere else.

Riley huffs as she peels away the scene photos. ‘When don’t they?’

‘Stop being existential,’ he says, dropping into the nearest vacant chair and taking the papers from her outstretched hand. ‘I don’t have the energy for it.’

‘You’ve got the energy for a pint, though, I’d bet.’

Miles makes a show of thinking, then taps the papers against the desk and grins. ‘I’m pushing it, but go on.’

That gets a laugh from the both of them, only Riley’s thrown over her shoulder with an honest grin. Chandler’s trying not to notice but it brings a half-smile to Kent’s mouth as well, although he’s still quiet as he gathers the lists they’ve been keeping pinned up for reference. Chandler’s heart lurches as he watches him alphabetize them out of the corner of his eye, double-check that their edges line up before securing them all with a bulldog clip. He almost can’t beat to think that it might be for his benefit, even now, even after all this. Kent still… well, he still cares, doesn’t he?

He shouldn’t. Chandler can’t see why he would.

(Never has, has he?)

Riley pulls at the edge of Browning’s likeness, the photo they’ve pulled from the author page in a copy of his book, and exhibits a theatrical shudder. ‘He seems as if he should leave a slick behind him.’

There’s a murmuring agreement in the pause, and for some reason Chandler finds it difficult to extricate himself, difficult to turn back on them and retire to his office with the door left half open and a quiet moment half lost. Instead he stands, the side of one leg pressed almost uncomfortably against the closest desk, and tries not to watch their youngest DC too closely as he peers at the photography in Riley’s hand—the forced smile, the staged arms, the eyes they’ve just seem confess to murder.

‘People always lie, don’t they?’ Kent says, musing to himself more than anything as they go back to peeling off the photographs, wiping off the lists. 

Miles scoffs. ‘Like rugs.’ 

Mansell makes an uncannily similar sound from the other side of the board.  ‘If they didn’t we’d be out of jobs.’

Chandler swallows down bile; it’s too close to him now, more so than it usually is. Everything feels… pertinent. Even now. His heart pumps in a wavery sort of movement and his hands are shaking, just a little, but he's just going to ignore that.

There’s a report to write, after all.

*

‘Oi, Kent!’ Miles’ voice echoes across the emptying incident room. ‘You coming down the pub?’ 

Chandler looks up from his report to see Kent stood at his desk, shrugging his coat onto his shoulders. Even from where he’s sat in the cradle of his office, he can tell that Kent doesn’t look as pleased as he’d have expected him to. After all, he’d brought in the essential evidence, the last clinching detail that put Browning in a holding cell.

‘No thanks, skip,’ he says, voice steady even as Miles frowns at his answer. ‘I think I’ll give it a miss tonight.’

Miles eyes him for a moment, obviously having similar thoughts to Chandler, but he doesn’t press. ‘All right. Good work today, lad.’

Kent smiles—that odd closed-mouth one he does when he’s slightly embarrassed—and lets Miles’ parting clap to his shoulder rattle through his limbs. That’s the worst he has to endure; Riley and Mansell have already walked out the main doors in search of pints and Ed’s still stuck somewhere in 1968 for some unknown reason. Chandler’s not bothered about ascertaining exactly what that reason is—he’ll undoubtably find out in the morning, it’ll probably be on his desk waiting for him—so instead he folds the file in front of him closed and runs a hand over his face.

When he glances up again, Kent’s looking at him. Chandler shifts slightly in his seat as if his mind’s telling him to get to his feet faster than his limbs are, but after a moment he realises that there’s an almost negligible shake to Kent’s head, an almost hidden refusal of something that’s not even been offered yet. Chandler frowns, cocks his head—this is new—but there’s just that strange and steady look, something akin to disappointment. It’s something that flitted across the Commander’s face, too, before his abject refusal.

The similarity makes brings bile to the back of his throat, and as Chandler fumbles to his pocket for the trust and familiarity of the tub of Tiger Balm he can hear the steady step of Kent’s retreat. If that’s what it is. Chandler doesn’t feel like it is; he’s doing more running sat there, isn’t he? That’s a particular talent of his. He’s been doing it for days, he’s felt himself doing it but he couldn’t stop. It’s instinct, self-preservation taken too far. He shouldn’t have to, not against him, but… he is.

He always manages to fuck it up in the end, doesn’t he?

(He should have known. One look at his track record, and he should have known. One look at the rest of his _life_.)

Chandler’s on his feet before he’s realised he’s made the decision to get up. It’s just as well his body’s ahead of his mind, he can’t think quick enough—or, he can, but he can’t keep up well enough to know what he’s thinking. There’s just something that feels terribly wrong about letting Kent go, more wrong than the rest of these awkward days have been, and he can’t just sit there even if he wants to. He can’t just leave it, can he, he has to try and find what he has to say to resolve whatever it is that’s made a mess of his head. Just—don’t— 

Don’t what? He doesn’t know. He doesn’t even know if he’s talking to Kent or himself.

Chandler catches up with him halfway down the stairs, one foot still on the landing. ‘Kent—' 

He doesn’t ask him to wait. That’s too close. Kent knows, anyway, knows what he means; he stops on the second to last step, hand loosely caught on the banister, and waits just a beat too long before turning back in Chandler’s direction.

‘Is there a problem?’

(It’s the best way he can think to phrase it, with the duty officer sat right there with his paper and the group of PCs at the end of the hall. It’s cold, too clinical, even he can see that now but it’s the best he can do. _Shit_.)

Kent pins him with a look, eyes hard from where he’s glancing up the stairs towards him. It feels shockingly intimate for all the space between them.

‘You, sir.’

Chandler’s mouth closes, his throat working around some sort of hindbrain fear that roots him to the spot. Kent watches his stillness for a moment, his inability to act, and casts his gaze downwards before turning back to the direction he’d been going before and heading for the door. Chandler can’t follow, couldn’t even if he’s managed to get that far in his thinking; this is the station, he can’t just rush off after him without alerting more questions. 

(It feels like a feeble excuse, even though he knows it’s valid.)

The door rattles shut, the brief flare of the sound of rain and traffic smothering Kent’s footsteps as he seeps into the darkness outside, one figure among many. Chandler feels his hand slip off the banister, fingers falling away one by one, as he tries desperately to think what he’s supposed to do now, what he can do now and what he wants to do now. He doesn’t know any of it, can’t know; that’s the most terrifying thing, isn’t it? It’s what’s been happening to him for years. He can see it all crumbling around him, he’s horrified by it, but he can’t quite make himself do anything.

Oh, God.

He can’t stay standing there, he knows. He balances on the brink of panic like an upturned needle. It isn’t a question of if he’ll tumble, but when. Probably soon, preferably somewhere other than the main staircase of Whitechapel Police Station. Even as he thinks it he feels the urge to turn to Kent, to search him out in the crowd but then he realises, remembers exactly what’s just gone on and his heart lurches. 

Two uniformed officers approach the foot of the stairs, but Chandler’s still too stunned to think anything of it, even as they climb closer. He keeps his eyes fixed on the glass doors, the darkness throwing back a mirrored image where it wouldn’t in the day until he can’t ignore them any more, then he’s forced to catch their eye and offer a polite expression that only just about manages to throw a cover over all the cracks. He hates them a little bit for it, a flare of emotion that he’s not used to in this context, but that too he battles down. What else can he do?

‘Evening, sir,’ one of them says, smile too wide to be genuine. 

The other smirks as they pass. ‘Good catch, eh?’

Chandler barely registers exactly what it is they’re implying as they take the stairs beyond him two at a time, clattering across the same floor he’d just ruined with the memory of Kent’s hard gaze, brittle with hurt. They waft past with stale smoke, the scent overridden with a new layer of fresh and the echo of a half-hearted crafty cigarette; he flinches away as he places it, unhappy and uncomfortable. He can’t tell if it’s that or everything else that makes him feel a bit sick. That itch to fix it, though—that one he can manage. He can put that right, if he tries.

 _(Maybe_.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next (and final!) chapter: 06 January 2014.
> 
> I'm afraid my history student's showing a little bit in this one. Couldn't help myself. You may possibly be able to guess what essay I was grappling with at the time of drafting this. ;) 
> 
> Thank you so much for the comments, kudos, and wonderful support. One more update to go!


	11. Chapter 11

‘Are we back to the paper clips versus staples debate?’

‘I thought that was a dead duck.’ 

‘Well, it's just quacked again.’

Miles lets sarcasm dry his voice as he peers at an email on his monitor. Mansell just chuckles and turns his attention back to the pitcher of coffee he’s rapidly emptying into another of his tawdry mugs. Kent ignores them both; he knows what Miles is on about, he’d got in earlier and checked his email before the shift had even begun. Another bloody audit, the desks upstairs are always threatening them and now they’ve actually got a date and time. They won’t get any decent cases at this rate, at least not until one of them can figure out exactly what excuses they’re going to use for Ed and his miscellaneous expenses. 

Except Kent can’t even muster the mental energy to worry about that at the moment, because he’s trying so hard not to look to his left and catch a glance of Chandler doing whatever it is he’s doing, going about his routine like nothing’s happened. And nothing has, not really, not since Kent threw pointed words at him and then… nothing. All the bloody same, really, the minute something gets a little difficult they clam up. Kent’s just stewing in his own confusion and unfocused anger. It’s worse for the not knowing exactly why he’s angry. That way he’s pissed off at the vagueness of it all, his own bloody indecision, as well as whatever it is he thinks Chandler’s done. 

(Not that he can decide.)

But it’s easier to be angry than it is to be scared, and if that’s what’s going to get him through the day, then that’s what’s going to get him through the day. He can wallow in self-doubt at home, on his own time. Preferably without a drink, although it’s getting to the point now when even Oliver’s pressing bottles into his hand with an almost sympathetic look, because when have any of those ever made anything clearer? The only thing that would do that is to have it out now, here, with words and explanations. But there’s nothing. Just nothing.

Fighting is quick, brutal, messy. This isn't fighting, it's waiting. He’d rather Chandler just shout at him. It’s not as if he hasn’t done it before. Even that’s just a lonely hum in Kent’s brain now, a memory that stung at the time but suddenly feels representative of a healthier time when they hadn’t (apparently) been floundering. But that’s a lie, isn’t it, because they’ve never been healthy, they’ve always been a mess, they’ve always been fucked up—by everyone else and themselves and each other—and there’s never been an answer. So Kent sits there waiting for a program on his computer to boot and rubs at his jaw, trying to work some of the tension out of it.

He doesn’t even have the heart to groan when Mansell decides to try his luck.

‘All right there, mate?’ he asks, almost unbearably cheerful. ‘You’re looking a bit peaky.’

(If only that was it.)

‘Just feeling a bit off colour.’ Kent sighs as the program finally launches with a soft _ping_.

Mansell gives a rusty laugh and makes for his own desk. ‘You’re getting more and more like the boss by the day.’

He can hear his own voice go cold. ‘Piss off.’

‘All right, all right.’ Mansell holds his hands up in mock surrender, eyebrows raised. ‘Evidently not.’

Kent reckons he’s just given something away there, but he can’t be bothered to worry about it.

‘Mind you, he looks a bit like a dropped trifle.’ Mansell’s nodding towards Chandler’s office, but Kent won’t look. He keeps his eyes fixed on the launch screen. ‘Who knows what shat in his shoe this morning.’

It’s a painful thought that, although Kent has an inkling he knows, he’s not sure anymore.

There would have been a time when he was.

* 

The third time Chandler excuses himself from the incident room and makes for the men’s toilets, it’s late afternoon and Kent’s not said a word to him. No one’s noticed, hardly anyone’s saying anything apart from Mansell’s incessant joking, but it weighs heavily on Chandler’s mind. He can’t help but wonder if he should have gone after Kent, witnesses be damned, or if he should have rung him the minute he’d set foot out the station, or if he should have shown up at his flat regardless of whether or not his flatmates were in to see him. At the time it had all seemed mad, outrageous, but now… well, he wonders.

He knows what Kent meant, now.

The weight of the door against his hand is grounding, as is they way he has to lean into the pressure to get it to yield. It’s tangible, unlike so many of the things that have spent days flitting through his mind, and he so needs tangible. There’s nothing worse than ghosts, even of _him_ , of _them_ ; they’ve always messed with his mind, ever since… well, ever since. He’d needed time to think it all through, hadn’t he? That’s why. Except that’s not why, because he knows he’ll never muddle his way out of this mess (there’s no precedent, he’s got no experience with this, has he?) and he’s just biding his time. For what exactly? Chandler doesn’t—can’t—know. He can’t tell.

He’s so focused on keeping his breathing level, keeping in control until he can wrap himself together in the odd sort of privacy he’d managed to gather for himself in the bustle of the station, that he almost doesn’t realise that he’s not alone when the door closes behind him. The sound’s magnified by tile and relative emptiness, and maybe he can blame that for why he jumps.

He hadn’t noticed Kent get up from his desk—which is probably telling enough and he doesn’t want to think about that any more than he has to—but that’s definitely him, a figure with a curved back despite the sharp black of his suit, the familiar shape of the tailored shoulders. It strikes a cold jab of fear into the depth of his stomach, shooting straight through to the very base of his spine. This is it, isn’t it? 

Chandler’s immediate instinct is to immediately turn on his heel and march straight back out the door. He almost does, he gets halfway through the maneuver before his mind catches up with his body. Even staring at the mahogany of the back of the door Chandler can feel Kent behind him, silent and not moving. The stillness feels wrong, the silence sickening, as if on a molecular level Chandler knows it’s not supposed to be like this, it was never supposed to be like this. He’d thought he’d seen too many crime scenes that started out as a romantic night in to ever feel like something’s supposed to end up a certain way, but he realises with a heavy swallow that he had, with Kent.

He _had_. He can’t define what the expectation was, or what he wanted it to be, but he knows it isn’t this. Chandler licks his lips and measures the feeling of loss that’s quickly pooling in his chest, wonders how many seconds are too many, but even as a thickness settles hot and heavy in his throat he turns back. He can’t bear the not knowing—his imagination's always been too good.

He can’t not say anything. 

He can’t not see it, now.

‘Kent.’ 

He gets nothing in return, but the DC’s body suddenly goes whipcord tense, knuckles white with his grasp on the edge of the ceramic. It’s only a degree further than what he’d been before, when Chandler had walked in and interrupted, but it digs the knife in deeper. Chandler takes a deep breath and steps further into the room, careful not to crowd and even more careful not to let his thoughts spill out of his mouth.

Words collect beneath Chandler’s ribcage, lost and buzzing but he can't quite spit them out; he can’t find which ones would work, which ones should go together, which combinations would actually articulate what he wants them to.

‘I—’ 

(He can’t. Christ, he _can’t_.)

He almost honestly doesn’t know what to say. He hasn’t for days, has he? Not about this.

Kent finally looks at him, a brief skittering glance that only lingers for a moment, then suddenly his mercurial mood seems to shift again. The tension down the line of his back gives way to something Chandler would guess is exhaustion, resignation. 

‘We, uh—’ He speaks to the tap, refusing to catch sight of himself in the mirror, and sighs when he fumbles. ‘We can’t keep doing this.’

Except what he means to say is _we can’t go on like this_ and there’s a double entendre there that’s decidedly not amusing. Chandler swallows, mouth suddenly dry, and considers taking a step forward; his feet aren’t exactly listening to him, though, so what happens is more akin to an awkward shuffle, a useless shifting of weight.

‘I just—’

‘Not here.’

His tone’s like a razor. He doesn’t even look up from where he’s staring at his hands and it stops Chandler in his tracks.

‘Kent, please.’ 

He can’t bear Kent’s eyes, not even when they aren’t looking at him.

‘It’ll have to be yours.’

(Kent’s never sounded like he hates the idea before.) 

Chandler nods.

What else can he do? There’s a list of thing’s he’d like to be able to, that he’d like to want to do in this moment, but none of them are anything they’d ever managed to do at the station. Even though they’re all almost entirely innocent, everything feels too suggestive now, even the way he’s saying Kent’s name. But that he can’t change, that’s just something to do with his vocal cords and the way he can feel the way his heart’s pounding all the way to the ends of his fingers. He flexes his fists but it does nothing; it’s still there, the reminder that he does actually care.

‘I’ll see you after the shift,’ he says, quiet and low as if it’s an admittance of defeat.

(He might be. He’s poorly equipped for this, after all.)

Kent nods, still somewhere else. 

All Chandler can do as he turns and heaves himself back to his desk is hope Kent knows that his seemingly insouciant demeanor does not mean that he doesn’t care, just that he doesn’t know what to say.

(He’ll never know what to say.) 

*

The living room’s warmth stifles them; they shed their coats. Chandler’s conscious that it feels presumptuous, even in his own flat, while Kent’s refusing to look at him for longer than a glancing moment. Each time it happens he is aware, with agonizing clarity, that he hurts—that he’s scared. He has to swallow down dread that keeps welling up when he’s not looking, smother down the panic that comes with watching Kent move around the room like he hasn’t spent months of his time there. 

Chandler just stands there as Kent fidgets, kneading the palm of one hand with the thumb and forefinger of the other.

‘What are we—?’ he begins, breaking off as he looks up and meet’s Chandler’s gaze. ‘What are we doing, Joe?’

He can’t say anything. He wants to, but he can’t. He hasn’t got those sorts of answers. Instead he glances around the room for something, anything that’s out of place—at least that he can fix, can control—but there’s nothing. The place has been untouched since morning, and Kent hasn’t dared to touch anything. There’s no sign either of them have been in the flat at all, save for the fact they’re standing there. 

Kent shakes his head in Chandler’s peripheral vision. ‘You don’t know. I don’t know either. We’ve never bothered to think about it, have we?’ 

‘I thought it would be all right.’

(It’s a weak answer. It’s not even an answer at all, but it’s what he thought. He honestly did—does. Did.) 

‘I thought we—’ Kent’s voice goes tight, soft and fragile. ‘I don’t know what I thought.’

A quiet tension that threatens to smother them both settles in around them, a third visitor that neither of them let in. It arrives anyway, with their bitten-back words and almost-chosen phrases, and set aglow in the dim evening light Chandler can see every detail set out before him, every clue that should have made him realise that it’s worse than he thought. The slight rise and fall of Kent’s chest, the way his mouth tightens as he falls silent, the tense line of his neck as he turns away.

‘We like to think we’ve got things under control.’ His whole body tenses, his face falling in with each word, before looking down to his feet. ‘We’ve only got the vaguest idea of what’s going on here, haven’t we?’

All of the versions are true: they’ve just ended up here, they haven’t thought about it, they just stumbled through doing what they felt was right at the time with little actual, proper thought. Just impulse, yearning; Chandler wanted Kent so he found him, pulled him close and hadn’t let go until it suited him to. Kent hadn’t fought, hadn’t complained, he wanted the same but couldn’t grasp onto Chandler’s jacket to stop himself from slipping away, when the time came. Which it had, apparently, and Chandler swallows hard against the panic that swells when he realises that they’re setting this up to be the end, aren’t they?

(No. No, please, no.) 

(Why can’t he make himself say it?)

Kent just watches him struggle.

‘You had lunch with the Commander and something changed. Something. I’ve no idea what but it’s definitely there.’ He sucks his top lip under his bottom one and looks away. ‘Or not there, as the case may be.’

The room settles into the kind of silence Chandler can feel on his skin. He can’t tell if he’s hot or cold, or if the dull throbbing in his bones has come from some unknown overexertion or has something to do with the way Kent can barely look at him.

‘Did he warn you off me?’

Kent directs the question at the floor but it still catches Chandler off guard, even now.

‘No—!' 

(Why is denial always easier, even when it’s true?)

He does pick up his gaze then, eyes fragile as they settle on Chandler’s left shoulder. ‘If you’re having second thoughts, you should tell me, so I can start thinking about if I’m going to need a transfer.’

‘Kent, ple—if it was that, I’d tell you.’ 

(He’s telling the truth, he feels painfully honest and bare admitting it, but even he can’t guarantee that he would have told him before this point. Before he’d asked. He almost wishes it is that now, wishes he has an easy answer to give Kent so he’ll stop talking about transfers.)

‘You know as well as I do how difficult that is to believe.’ 

It’s the first time Kent’s sounded cruel.

Chandler’s not naive enough to think that asking will be easy, or that it will make the clenching pain in his chest go away, but he has to do it. They’ve escalated this, now, accidentally. He can’t leave him. Can’t leave it unattended.

‘Would you?’ He asks, almost a whisper. ‘Would you go?’

Kent doesn’t answer.

(Please. Please don’t.)

He doesn’t, but it’s not the comfort Chandler expected. It’s another unknown, another shadow around a just-seen corner, and in the half-glances he keeps of Kent in the corner of his eye he finds a hard face, expression almost unreadable save for the disapproval around the edge of his mouth. The upset in the set of his brow. The way he’ll chance a glance and look away, as if the sight pains him in that split second of recognition.

The corners of Kent’s mouth turn down as he swallows around something that looks uncomfortable. ‘Maybe this would have worked if you’d known why that first time.’

The words sound like they hurt his throat. They strike something in Chandler’s ribs, too, because he’s right, isn’t he? In a way. He’s never known _why_ he wants Kent, only that he _does_ , and that’s only as far as he’s got. He’s considered it, pondered the options but he’d always get distracted by a bright smile or a report delivered with a knowing glance that makes him think yes, yes, this works. 

There’s none of that now—only doubt written all over Kent’s face. His, too. Presumably.

(That’s always been their undoing. All of them.)

Chandler all but drops onto the corner of the closest sofa and presses the heels of his hands to his eyes until spots of bursting white appear. 

‘It, uh—’

(He’s trying; _God_ , he’s trying.)

‘I don’t know, it was—it was just something the Commander said.’ He’s still struggling but if words are coming out, he’ll keep pushing. ‘There’s been… words, I don’t know, I didn’t really take it in properly. Rumours. About the nature of… _us_.’ 

He glances up and sees Kent swallow heavily. ‘Was he concerned?’

‘Not at all.’ Chandler’s almost tempted to laugh at how far into the absurd they’ve gone, but he can’t quite make his eyes leave the grain of the wood at his feet. ‘He had a positively good laugh about it.’

There’s no need for him to look up and see the confusion on Kent’s face; he can imagine it well enough, because rationally—empirically—he can see how ridiculous this is. But he also knows far too well that that doesn’t make every thought he’s had irrelevant, doesn’t make each swell of panic and crushing disbelief unreal. He still feels it, even now—especially now, with Kent’s stare weighing heavily on his skin. Instead he presses fingers to his temples and rubs in circles, the familiar movement grounding him just long enough.

‘I was scared because I love you and that doesn’t seem to mean anything.’ 

He says it all on one breath; if he’d had to pause to take another none of the words would have come out. 

Kent stops, still as a gasp. ‘What?’

‘What?’ 

‘You love me?’

Chandler’s face burns; he can’t quite muster the courage to say it again. ‘Yes.’

‘But it doesn’t matter?’ Kent still sounds hurt.

‘Not to them—the Commander laughed, Kent. Laughed at the very _idea_ of you and me.’ 

‘Does it matter?' 

Chandler doesn’t have an answer to that except that it does and it doesn’t, which is about as useless as the rest of his thoughts. Words keep getting away from him.

‘We knew it wouldn’t be simple…’ Kent trails off as if he instinctively wants to offer comfort, reassurance, but he can’t bring himself to anymore.

‘But he’s—well, I suppose he’s the closest to family I’ve got left, besides you.’ Chandler slides his gaze away, looking fixedly at his knees and wondering where exactly what’s left of his voice has gone. It’s almost too quiet for anyone except himself when he continues. ‘I hadn’t expected it to… _sting_ quite so much.’

He’s not sure Kent’s heard at all when there’s nothing more than still silence after he stops with a thick swallow and a dry mouth. When he does manage to bring his gaze back towards the room at large instead of the wooden floors he looks anywhere but Kent, at any of the patches of wall and bookcase that lie on either side. He feels—he doesn’t know what he feels, not really, just that there’s the similar hot sting over his skin that comes with a wash of embarrassment or regret. That must do something to his face, too, because he has to look back to Kent eventually and when he does, the expression that’s always the same when Kent’s thinking softens, falls away to something else. Something that’s almost familiar, something that he knows he should place but it’s been a while and he’s been distracted. That thought does something else, something to his mouth that might be a self-hating grimace, and he looks down again.

Kent sighs an anguished, ‘Oh, Joe,’ and steps forward, the first definitive move between them in days.

Chandler doesn’t know how he does it, it must require some sort of uncomfortable contortion on his part, but Kent somehow manages to settle almost face-to-face with where he’s sat and wrap an arm across the spread of Chandler’s shoulders to pull him close. Chandler softens into Kent's touch a little, though he knows his eyes are still wary; they always are. Then there’s a small reassuring sound from the back of Kent’s mouth, a gentle tug of encouragement and Chandler turns into his warmth with a long, doleful sigh. Kent rests his nose and chin on the top of Chandler’s head as he waits, contemplating. Chandler just wants to sit there, silent, listening to the thump of Kent’s heart against his skin; he’d almost thought that he wouldn’t get to do that again.

‘I can’t change that.’ Kent picks up his head as he speaks but doesn’t relax his grip. ‘You can’t either, but as much as an arse he’s been in the past, I think the Commander would come round.’ He pauses and when Chandler doesn’t move, just adjusts his awkward grip on Kent’s shirt, he presses a brief kiss to Chandler’s hair. ‘He’s your family, isn’t he? A bit brusque, perhaps, and shortsighted with a good dose of tunnel vision, but he wants you to be happy.’

A short, incredulous laugh does come out then, muffled by Kent’s shoulder. ‘And if happiness is a slightly scandalous affair with one of my DCs?’

‘Is it?’ The wide swipe of Kent’s hand across his spine comes to rest on the exposed skin at the nape of his neck. ‘Happiness to you?’ 

‘Kent.’

(Chandler doesn’t know what he’s trying to say.) 

His hand stills as he pushes Chandler’s chin in an attempt to find eye contact. ‘Is it?’

‘I think so. Yes.’ He blinks as he says it, the realisation and the admittance new to the both of them, and Kent releases his chin with a soft touch to his jaw. Chandler presses on anyway with his arm slipped beneath Kent’s jacket; once he starts it’s difficult to stop. ‘I didn’t realise how distracted I’ve been. I know I was being funny with you but I couldn’t stop, so I upset you and I have no idea why I let myself do that.’

Chandler doesn’t say it out loud, but that might have hurt more than what the Commander had unintentionally insinuated, because he’d done it and there’s no one else to blame for that. It’s going to go that way, isn’t it? Eventually? Maybe that’s why he hasn’t tried before—some part of his subconscious knew.

Kent’s hand slips from the back of Chandler's neck and down his arm, coming to rest in the crook of his elbow in a solid line. ‘Joe?’

‘Hmm?’ 

‘Do you mean it? What you said, earlier.’

‘Yes.’ It’s easier to say it with his face pressed to the junction of Kent’s neck, one arm wrapping around Kent’s waist and drawing him close.

Kent hugs Chandler back, too tight. ‘Really?’

He presses a tentative dry-mouthed kiss to the side of Kent’s neck; he knows what he wants him to say, what he needs to be able to say if they’re ever going to work, but there’s something that rises in Chandler’s throat every time he tries.

Chandler swallows, and tests another approach. ‘I do.’ 

When he doesn’t get an answer save for Kent’s gentle stroking of the back of his neck, he leans back as much as the grip will allow fearing the worst; he feels almost lightheaded when it’s Kent’s smile he finds and not another blank look or spectre-thin veil of disappointment. Kent catches his eye and the edges of his expression turn tender, quiet. (They haven’t been like that for a while; not that Chandler’s seen, anyway.)

‘Then don’t worry,’ he begins, answering a question Chandler hadn’t realised he’d asked. ‘I know it’s useless, you always will, but you don’t have to. I’ve forgiven much worse from you. I’ve loved you for ages, and I want to know when you doubt yourself because I can’t, not really.’ His grip tightens fractionally, an involuntary movement, as he shrugs with the other shoulder. ‘Not like that.’

‘What?’

‘Doubt you. Not if I understand.’ The smile widens and he crooks a brow. ‘Not for any longer than a couple of hours at a time, anyway.’ 

Chandler sighs into the warm hollow of Kent's throat. ‘You are more than I deserve.’ 

‘What do any of us deserve?’ There’s a lilt in his voice that suggests a bit of an existential crisis, but it doesn’t last. ‘Just be happy, Joe.’ Then, almost as an afterthought, he adds _,_ ‘With me.’

‘It’s difficult.’

‘I know. I’ve not had an easy time of it either.’

He can’t believe he’s saying it, almost can’t believe he knows it, but he breathes out against Kent’s skin and says, ‘I need you.’

‘Then you have me.’

That’s almost too much; they’ve gone past everything else they’ve ever said and Chandler can’t quite believe it’s happening at all. But perhaps they have said it all—he’s almost convinced he has—just in bits and pieces other than words. He’d been comfortable with the ambiguity, happy with the suggestion, but hearing Kent whisper that into his ear makes him realise all they’d been leaving out. Then suddenly he’s leaning his head back into the curve of Kent’s neck, pressing his forehead into the fabric of Kent’s shirt at his shoulder, cool and soft against his overwarm skin until Kent nudges them back face-to-face and gentles his mouth against Chandler’s. It’s only brief, a warm slanting of lips that just serves to prompt Chandler to take another fistful of Kent’s shirt and try to pull him closer, but it feels like exactly what he’s been looking for ever since that ill-fated meal. Like always, it’s right in front of him, if he’d just take the time to see it.

Kent draws back with a small noise in the back of his throat and a warm, reassuring hand still on the back of Chandler’s neck. ‘Did you tell him?’ 

‘About what?’ Chandler asks, distracted by the warmth of Kent’s breaths against his cheek.

‘About us.’

(Chandler can’t even begin to think how glad he is they’re still speaking in those terms.)

‘Oh, no. Of course not.’

‘I think that’s for the best.’ Kent nuzzles the skin behind Chandler’s ear. ‘Wait until he’s retired and doesn’t have the responsibility to do something about it.’

He laughs at that—actually _laughs_ , for God’s sake, even with the inexplicable lump in his throat. Kent kisses him again, more of a sweet, slow slide of tongues this time, and Chandler feels as if he’s melting for the relief, the realisation that the moment’s passed, they’ve not disintegrated and ended up in a very awkward situation. He doesn’t want to think about what Miles would have done, not even now, not even when he’s sure it won’t happen. He doesn’t want to think about not working with Kent, not finding his face in the crowd at each briefing, at each breakthrough and at the end of each careful evening. He just wants to keep his mind here, in the flat, with Kent’s weight falling heavier against his limbs.

‘This is probably unhealthy,’ Chandler murmurs against Kent’s mouth, as if he has any idea what he’s talking about.

Kent smiles as he pulls back slightly to regard his face. ‘We’ve had this conversation.’ 

‘Have we?’

‘Yeah,’ he says, voice gentle with the remembrance as his eyes dart across each feature on Chandler’s face. ‘We decided we didn’t mind.’

Chandler nudges Kent’s forehead with his own. ‘Does anyone ever get this right?’

Some part of Kent’s expression fumbles, falls away a bit as he moves one hand to stroke at Chandler’s cheekbone. ‘Why are you asking me?’

They let the _I don’t know any better than you_ remain unsaid. Instead Chandler lets Kent coax him to his feet with a gentle hand under his chin, lets him suggest with his hands that perhaps his jacket would be better left on the arm of the sofa, lets him arrange them into a proper embrace with bodies pressed close at each and every possible point until Kent’s mouth finds his in the rapidly nearing dark. Chandler doesn’t even mind that the evening’s seeping through the open curtains and half-tilted blinds, not now. Not with Kent’s hands resting on his shoulders, fingers splayed against the sides of his neck, their kisses full of a sort of reprieve tinted by relief and gratitude. 

Chandler sucks in a belated breath as they part, mustering up some quiet part of himself to murmur, ‘I’m sorry.’ 

‘You can be a bit of a bastard,’ Kent says, although he’s smiling and he tugs Chandler into movement as he swerves in for another unsteady, skittering kiss. 

They tumble through the bedroom door, made stupid by sheer relief somehow jumbled into lust, losing themselves in gulping kisses.

This isn’t even how he’d hoped it would go, he’s never been that much of an optimist. Warm breath stutters down the side of Chandler’s neck, interspersed with soft sighs and whimpers, and Kent clutches him close almost as hard as Chandler wants him to.

*

Chandler hasn’t been this glad it’s the weekend since sixth-form.

Both he and Kent are off the duty roster, like the rest of the team; unless there’s an unprecedented onslaught of bodies discovered in the next forty-eight hours, they won’t be called in. It’s a good thing, too, because they might still be in bed but they haven’t had much restful sleep. Not yet, anyway. From the way they’ve arranged themselves under the duvet, it doesn’t feel as if they’re planning on going anywhere in a hurry.

The day had seemed to vanish before his eyes. One minute they’re tripping over each others feet in their haste to get to the bed, and in what feels like the next Chandler’s waking slowly to find a hand on his back and a sleeping Emerson snuffling in his ear. It had still been dark, the sort of sooty blackness that only comes with proper night far from the reverse shadow of morning, and for once Chandler’s glad. He wants those hours, wants them here with Kent’s steady breathing against the cords of his neck, his arm heavy across the base of his ribs. Inside the essential chaos of his arms he feels safe, as mad as that sounds. But he’s trying to stop questioning it, isn’t he, so when his eyes adjust to the lack of light and he can pick out the sleep-blurred features of Kent’s face Chandler lifts his head to rest a gossamer-soft kiss against his cheekbone. 

(It’s the least he can do.) 

An hour passes, or it might be more like three, but Chandler wakes gently to the sound of rustling fabric and a gentle ghosting of light from around the curtains; he hadn’t pulled them shut, they’d been far too preoccupied for that, but there they are, closed. He’s already frowning with bleary eyes when Kent reappears from wherever it was he’d gone. He’s got a vague idea that speech might be necessary, or that he wants to say something, but Kent gets there quicker and shushes him with a gentle rasp, pressing a kiss to whatever bit of Chandler’s face is available as he nestles himself back against him. He presses his palm flat against Chandler’s abdomen, skin cool with the memory of tap water, trailing touch upwards until he’s giving Chandler’s jaw a little rub with his thumb as they share a hot pillow, sheets still warm. Chandler makes a noise in his chest that’s not dissimilar to a purr, and he doesn’t even mind as Kent settles his head in the curve of Chandler’s neck and his hand wanders—it catches in the crook of his arm, rubs at his side.

It’s the sort of casual touch he would have avoided like the plague, before. He leans into it now, just for him, curls his free arm around Kent’s lower back and splays his palm across his skin, his spine and bone. There’s something different about body heat. Something velvet about warm skin.

Chandler reaches down and hitches Kent’s leg higher so it’s not putting pressure on his knee.

Kent sighs, content, and it’s possibly the best sound Chandler’s ever heard.

They skirt the edge of consciousness together, Kent’s thumbs rubbing circles into Chandler's upper arm until the motion dies away slowly, dulled by relaxation. Sleeping with him, in all of its senses, is probably the closest Chandler’s ever got to a religious experience. This is what he’s always imagined you’d find in a church, if you believed; this unquestioning, comfortable silence that he finds in Kent’s warmth pressed close. Is that a sin? Can he be bothered?

Chandler just breathes instead, pushes the thought from his mind as he presses his mouth to Kent’s brow. That’s another apology; they probably all will be, a little bit, now. It’s the best way he can think to do it, the way that brings the least pain to either of them. They are double-edged swords yet they manage, and Kent glances at him from where he’s picked his head up from the pillow with an affectionate half-smile.

There’s a nudge to Chandler’s chin and then they’re exchanging little sips of kisses, slurred with sleepiness and familiar as native language. He smiles into them, or maybe Kent does; there’s little left that can tell the difference in this situation. But they do, because they can, and they should, and they will. In any case, Chandler leans into the bits Kent leaves out, shifts uncomfortably onto his shoulder until it protests and he has to lean back, Kent’s weight pushing him down until the young man leaves a quiet kiss on the bridge of his nose and leans back himself, resettling against Chandler’s side.

Chandler’s never thought he’d have this. He hadn’t know he’d wanted it, not really, until he’d had it and almost let it slip through his fingers. He’s still not sure how he never realised before as he tries to commit the feeling of Kent’s flex and tense against him as he stretches and settles for sleep to memory; he's bone-marrow warm and Chandler curls around him, limbs and all, with a sort of forgotten desperation that must be obvious because Kent looks at him with concern in his eyes and a slight anxious twist of his mouth, his fingers curling around Chandler’s side as if it’s a reflex to keep him from slipping away, bit by bit.

‘You all right?’ he asks, using that soft, intimate tone that twists Chandler’s stomach into awful, wonderful knots. 

He rubs his lower lip along Kent's, and smiles.

*

Sunday is quiet, slow, horizontal.

They’re out of bed then back in again, when Kent tells the edge of his mug he’s still tired and both he and Chandler realise the novelty of being able to go back, no questions asked. So they do, Chandler slotted up against Kent’s back from hip to head, but neither of them tumble into sleep. Instead they grow slow and languid, pleased and overwarm in that halfway point between relaxation and unconsciousness. Kent had never thought Chandler would be like this, _could_ be like this, but all those mornings watching him wake slowly and with the unhappy realisation that he had to be awake should make him expect this.

It doesn’t.

The fact that Chandler can put aside everything that’s gone on, everything that lies in the station waiting for them in files and papers and reports and just breathe across the back of Kent’s neck on a late morning when they haven’t even bothered opening the curtains still seems miraculous. Kent almost can’t believe it, but even now he doesn’t want to waste the energy thinking about it; instead he shifts, arches his back like some sort of oversized cat and relishes the feel of Chandler’s chest against his spine, the curve of his arm as he encourages the movement. Then the breaths against his neck are replaced with the gentle press of Chandler’s mouth, a trail of kisses that raise goosebumps across Kent’s skin.

Kent makes a low crooning noise as Chandler rubs his chin across Kent’s bare shoulder. ‘You’d better not be thinking of stopping.’ 

‘I thought you said you were tired.’

The words smear against the back of Kent’s neck with wide, soft indentations of teeth against skin, a gentle bite at the end of his kiss.

‘Don’t turn into a smartarse.’

Chandler chuckles, pressing a kiss to his hairline as he slides a palm across Kent’s stomach. ‘I think that’s the first time I’ve been called that.’

The bedroom’s dark and cool, entirely opposite to the heat of Chandler’s mouth, the press of his tongue against skin. They’re well into morning, really, and even through Chandler’s fabric-covered windows there’s a faint murmur of a living city and activity that, for once, they aren’t a part of. Anticipation fingers its way slowly up Kent’s spine as Chandler’s mouth trails to the back of his ear, when he has to prop himself up on the hand he’d just left heavy across Kent’s side to kiss him properly. Kent almost moans in relief when Chandler slips his tongue into Kent’s mouth, when he wraps an arm around Kent’s waist and manages to roll them over so that all of a sudden Kent has to steady himself with hands against the pillow on either side of Chandler’s head.

‘What’s this, then?’ Kent asks, his crooked smile dulled by the way Chandler’s eyes have gone dark with pupil.

‘Whatever you want.' 

The answer’s anything and everything, it always has been, but Kent just grins. Chandler’s glazed look fades a little at the gesture, softens, and he can be surprisingly quick when he wants to because before Kent knows it Chandler’s mouthing at the crook of his jaw, the join of his neck. He exhales in surprise, sitting back and shifting to straddle Chandler lower; a shudder runs through him as they manage to get themselves moderately vertical and Chandler presses his teeth to the soft juncture of shoulder. The slight smarting’s soothed with a wash of tongue that makes Kent’s grip against Chandler’s back tighten and his breath hitch. He lets his head fall back with a wide, pleased grin when he feels Chandler chuckle against his skin, feeling another nibble where the smile had just been. His hands somehow move to the back of Chandler’s head, the side of his neck, and the pulse under his palm makes Kent’s own heart lurch.

Chandler presses his lips just below his shoulder, over the pounding in his chest.

‘Joe?’

There’s a _hm_ -like response from the region of his collar bone.

‘You know I do, right?’

There’s a moment before what he’s said registers, and when it does Chandler’s mouth works soundlessly for a few seconds and he has to settle for a quick nod. Kent kisses him so he doesn’t have to say anything else, and so Chandler doesn’t have to say anything either. It works wonderfully. It’s long and deep and slow until his lips are numb and his jaw aches, until the space between Chandler’s lips brings out the blue in Kent’s blood.

He’ll never get sick of kissing Chandler; it’s almost an impossibility in reality, an exceptional event that only happens if you’re in the exact right place at the exact right time. But more than that is the way it makes him go soft and open, the way it doesn’t break all his walls but lets Kent behind them instead. It’s more than knowing the inside of his teeth (although he knows that, too.) It’s the way Chandler gives himself up not to Kent but to the way he feels, and that’s enough for Kent. It’ll always be enough, if he remembers.

(He won’t forget again.) 

Kent pulls back, his nose resting alongside Chandler’s. ‘Thought I’d better say.’

Chandler looks at him like he still can’t believe it, like he still doesn’t think he deserves it; he’s still a bit dazed as Kent presses his mouth to his cheek, his jaw, runs his tongue across his bounding cartoid pulse until he draws out a swallowed whimper. He almost can’t chose between taking Chandler apart and being taken apart himself, because that’s definitely where this is going and there’s no wrong choice. It’s a decision between whim and willpower. Chandler’s malleable in Kent’s hands and it takes no effort at all to press him back into the mattress; Kent hovers over him for a moment, quiet and still a little disbelieving himself. He doesn’t even have to do anything to command Kent’s attention; just from being there, eye mostly tilted shut, the fan of his eyelashes against his flushed cheek suddenly seems fascinating, important. Kent can only watch as Chandler recovers, relishes. _Thinks_ , or at least thinks as much as he can before Kent skates his fingers across Chandler’s ribs and his body twitches in a lilt, trembles at his hands.

(That feels miraculous, too—that he should have that sort of effect on a man like Chandler.)

He’s laid out before him, breathing just that bit too hard to be innocent. It’s almost too much to look at, to behold, to _have_ and Kent swallows down an appreciative moan as he slides them into another slanting of lips and presses his palms against Chandler’s shoulders, kissing downwards over Chandler’s firm stomach, murmuring between kisses, lips forming the words that neither of them will repeat yet.

‘Kent—’

Chandler gasps out his name and Kent looks up at once, chin resting against the bottom of Chandler’s ribcage. Kent catches his eye and Chandler’s cock twitches against his throat; it takes him a moment to catch his breath after that, after the aborted whimper that comes from further up the bed. He can only watch as Chandler stops breathing then starts again, moments lost somewhere in between them, and press a firm kiss to Chandler’s side at the man’s hand catches at his cheek with a discernible tremor that makes Kent want to draw him closer, if that’s even possible. He follows the touch, pausing only to drop a wet kiss to Chandler’s sternum, until Chandler groans and they crash into another kiss, this time with the hint of teeth. His mouth feels clumsy, like they haven’t done this before, but maybe they haven’t, not like this—it’s different every time, familiar but Kent can still find sounds he hasn’t heard, feel the new ways Chandler twitches under his hand, bows his back upwards into the box of Kent’s hips.

‘Come here,’ he gasps as he gets his grip around Kent’s sides, voice rough but hands not.

Kent grins against the flex of Chandler’s neck. ‘Don’t have to tell me twice.’

Chandler huffs out something breathless that might be a laugh before he returns to Kent’s mouth, hard and possessive for a change as the rhythm of their breathing switches and their hands turn more determined. His kisses become erratic, sometimes missing Kent’s mouth altogether, and Chandler moans as Kent rolls his hips; the sound only serves to make him want to do it again, and again, until Chandler’s grip’s faltering on the back of his neck and he’s getting one hand into the waistband of Kents’s pyjama bottoms instead. The intent’s obvious and Kent’s more than happy to oblige; his own hands waste no ceremony on searching Chandler out, doing the same, although he lets his touch linger and Chandler swears at the ceiling, head pressed back into the pillow with an attractive arch of neck.

‘You…’ he begins as Kent presses a smirking kiss to his chest. ‘ _God_.’ 

Kent’s so very tempted to say _Not quite_ but that’s an overdone joke and all he really wants to do is feel Chandler against him, feel the press of  Chandler’s kiss-stung mouth against his. So he resettles and returns his mouth to Chandler’s throat, his jaw; he doesn’t miss the shudder that comes with another press of hips, the intensity of Chandler’s wide-eyed gaze until Kent kisses it away from him, eyes pressed shut. Somehow he loses balance and they end up sloping back to their sides, the same way they started except for the fact Kent has better access to Chandler’s mouth like this, pressed to his front and his hand tugging the small of his back closer, cradling the back of his neck.

They barely break for breath (in a situation like this it seems extraneous) but in between the nips and presses of tongue and warm mouths Chandler finds a moment to pull back, just slightly, and Kent watches his gaze dart around his face, the blue that could seem cold being anything but.

‘Turn over,’ Chandler suggests, almost just an exhale, the end of his words caught in a new kiss.

Kent doesn’t think twice about doing what he says—never has, never will—and lets Chandler’s hands guide him, with minute adjustments, sliding across his back and stomach as he settles on his other side and presses back into the line of hot warmth. Chandler crowds close, his mouth slipping over the ridge of Kent’s spine; he’s saying something but it’s too low for Kent to hear over his own breathing, the words blurry around the edges as Chandler’s tongue traces the jut of scapulae under the skin. It’s strangely, exquisitely slow after what they’d worked up a moment ago, and Kent’s aching with want but he can’t help but want this too, the suggestion of Chandler’s mouth, the quietness that seems so much like him. But he knows Chandler, and he knows he’s just as bad, and the evidence is pressed up against his back and Kent can’t seem to keep his thoughts straight, one hand scrabbling against the sheets.

‘Joe.’ 

Somehow he doesn't have to say please for it to sound like he's begging. His voice comes out thready and soft, as if Chandler’s wrecked him already.

(He probably has.)

Kent whines, tightens his grip on the sheets in his hand and presses back with his hips, searching Chandler out. He finds him easily and Chandler  breathes hard in his ear, swallowing. Kent pants through the pause, the wide hand splayed over his hip the most pressing thing on his mind. He knows Chandler knows what he wants, what he—they— _need_. Kent wets his lips, tries to gulp down air; Chandler tightens his grip and pulls Kent closer, mouth hot against his shoulder.

‘Kent, I—’ Chandler says delicately, scraping his teeth carefully over the knob of Kent’s neck. ‘Emerson…’

He doesn’t mind. Kent doesn’t even care anymore; Chandler can call him any name he likes as long as it’s his. As long as he doesn’t stop.

When Chandler does press slick fingers into him, bundled with a warm exhale across his tensed shoulders, all Kent’s nerves light up with pleasure. It thuds through him, in time with the thundering of his runaway heartbeat, and he has to breathe out hard through his nose to stop from crying out. Chandler presses a damp kiss to his shoulder and curves his fingers, knowledgeable and familiar here now as he is elsewhere, until Kent can’t bite back the moan. This part—well, this is another thing he’d never expected Chandler to want to do, to _enjoy_ , but just that realisation’s enough to bring him close to the edge and he has to bite his own lip to the point of pain. 

Their positioning means it’ll be slow, incremental, but Kent’s very happy to be brought to the brink and kept there by this man; that’s been happening much longer than _this_ has, in a way. Chandler’s always been able to do this to him, even when he isn’t trying and when he doesn’t know. It’s lovely losing that battle, finally, when he’s wanted to give in for so long.

‘I—God, I need—’ Kent squirms, chest heaving. ‘ _Joe_.’

(That’s instruction enough. It’s all he’s going to be able to get out, anyway, with Chandler doing what he does.)

Chandler withdraws his fingers—slowly, drawing out the answering whine—and Kent swallows heavily as the body behind him shifts and presses against the mattress. He doesn’t look, doesn’t want to; he just shuts his eyes with a wanting sigh and feels the heat of skin, the cool proprietary hand Chandler still keeps spread across his lower back.

All of a sudden the weight of Chandler’s mouth’s back on the side of his throat and Kent gasps; he arches, presses backwards, blind and desperate. Chandler smiles and slides his grip to Kent’s stomach, lower; his hand slippery (a promise), he strokes and Kent begins to fracture. He can feel his eyelids flutter, an involuntary reaction, and he tips his head back until he’s resting his skull on Chandler’s chin. There’s probably something dangerous about this—one particularly strong twitch and Chandler’s got another bloody nose—but he can feel Chandler’s heartbeat pick up against his twisted shoulder, can hear the stifled moan he tries to keep back as Kent arches under his touch. He can feel Chandler swallow, swear as his rhythm falters. (Even that’s beautiful.) 

Chandler takes a deep breath, nose pressed to Kent’s hair. ‘You…’

Kent makes a crooning noise that’s pleased, affectionate, vaguely reassuring but it devolves into something low and abandoned as Chandler’s newly-shifted grip against his hip flexes, pressing against him until he fits (though when hasn’t he?), until Kent groans deep in his throat as Chandler finally slides into him after long minutes of teasing and testing, Kent’s head canted back at an almost painful angle against the curve of Chandler’s shoulder.

‘ _Yes_ ,’ he exhales, long gone, and Chandler’s grip on his thigh tightens. 

For a moment there’s nothing except that feeling of fullness and a burst of silk on the back of his neck as Chandler breathes, tries to steady himself. But that sort of thing’s never lasted very long with them, and when Kent bites his lip and Chandler exhales a hushed curse into the crook of Kent’s shoulder they’re gone. Just a nudge and Kent’s moaning into the pillow, barely grounded by Chandler’s mouth against his neck, enthusiastic. Something harder and he bites out Chandler’s name, another slipping push and pull and he’s unintelligible.

(Chandler’s no better, not with the way he’s trying hard to keep quiet; it won’t last, it never does.)

(Kent doesn’t want it to, and he grins widely against the sheets as Chandler groans again his skin and fails to catch his breath).

He reaches blindly for Chandler’s free hand, the one from the arm that’s pinned underneath Kent’s neck, his fingers weaving through Chandler's. He has beautiful hands, really, sleek like his laugh, but now’s not the time; Kent can’t notice that when Chandler’s gasping against his ear, when there are sparks behind his eyelids and the only point that seems real is the clasp of their hands that should almost be too tight to be comfortable but no, it’s _just right_ , it’s what Kent wants, what he needs, what he’s always wanted, what he’s always needed. 

(It’s not a healthy way to think about things, about them, but it’s the only way he can think about it while they’re like this, if he can think at all.)

(And if Chandler gasps his name—his first name—against the back of his neck, then that’s all right too. He might even like it.)

In the point when he can’t only not think anymore but he doesn’t want to either Kent lets himself go in a stream of lost, broken noises—some of which are probably Chandler’s name wrapped up in breathy gasps—and a full-body shudder and a strangled moan. Chandler follows with a whine, sliding his fingers away from Kent’s in order to tilt his face backwards for a kiss, a slight gentle press of lips that quickly turns into more teeth and tongue than anything else. Kent licks into his mouth, smiling as Chandler pushes more desperately against him, grinning with a lazy air of satisfaction as he stops to gasp and shudder, still.

(He’ll never get enough of that, the look on Chandler’s face when he comes. There’s everything and nothing in that expression, oblivion and a strange sense that he’s just found the answer to a question he’s been asking for years. He almost looks young.)

The flush of release dies down slowly; a thin shaft of winter sunlight warms a sliver of Kent’s face and Chandler’s arm around his waist tightens for a moment in an unconscious afterthought. He can feel Chandler coming down, too: his grip going soft, his mouth turning tender. He almost can’t breathe for how much he knows about him, how much he’s given without knowing, and Kent sucks in a breath with the realisation but it somehow doesn’t feel out of place. Chandler slips from his body with a huff, half content, and a moment later they’re back tangled together again, just how they’d started. Kent rolls his shoulders back into Chandler’s, the motion lazy, and relishes the soft brush of lips he gets in return, the stuttering breaths. Kent’s going to be left with some blood bruises on his shoulder, the very base of his neck; his shoulder might even ache later on (he’s not as young as he used to be), but that doesn’t matter. None of it does. Not yet, anyway. 

Some vague thought of the fact that it couldn’t be better, the way they’ve ended up, drifts through his pleasingly hazy mind as he rolls over with loose limbs and an entirely boneless feeling down his spine to paw at Chandler’s shoulders with his hands, trying to pull him close. (He can never be too close, never close enough, not for Kent, not at a time like now.) Chandler gazes at him through the dulled morning light with half-closed eyes as Kent’s gentle touch triggers a slight shiver across his arm, and for a moment Kent can’t bear the amount of trust Chandler’s placed in him. For this.

He doesn’t say anything (mainly because he doesn’t have the breath for it but also a little bit because there isn’t much else to say, not at the moment) and gathers Chandler to him instead, snakes an arm around his chest and feels him slowly gathering enough air, ribs pressing against his own with each exhale. There’s a pulse there, possibly two, but Kent can’t tell which one he’s counting anymore. But it doesn’t matter if he loses count, does it?

This isn’t his only chance.

So, instead, he smiles as Chandler blinks slowly at him—mouth still not ready for words—and kisses him one more time (the beginning of many), gentle and even-pressed. 

Their silence has a solidity to it, like it’s trying on permanence to see how it fits.

(It suits them just fine.)

*

‘Fuck, fuck, fuck, shit, fuck—’

An affectionate laugh bubbles out of Riley. ‘You twat.’

Chandler glances up from where he’s nestled behind his sizeable desk in his impeccably neat office, pen in hand, to see Mansell flapping around his desk in a mild panic. A slight shift in position and he can see around the wooden doorframe to notice that it’s all centered around the mug next to his keyboard as he rifles through his drawers in search of something particular that seems to have gone missing.

(It’s not the first time. They still haven’t found that novelty tape dispenser, not that Chandler was sad to see it go.)

‘And in today's edition of odd items to use to take a teabag out of a mug,’ Mansell announces once he’s surfaced, ‘I'm using a stapler.’ 

‘That's disgusting,’ Riley says, pulling a face as Mansell attempts to fish out the offending item.

Chandler’s inclined to agree, but there’s a certain degree of fascination in watching him maneuver his way out of the situation. From a distance, of course, and he might even feel strangely impressed when Mansell manages to extricate the teabag without scalding himself. They’ll never be able to use that stapler again, though. (Perhaps he should add that to the office supply claims. At this point, it can’t hurt.)

‘What?’ he says, looking around at all of them on his way to the bin. ‘I didn't have a spoon.’

‘Oh, God.’ Riley groans. ‘You're going to come down with something.’

Mansell ignores them all, chuffed as ever. ‘Nah. Stomach of steel, me. Hand me the milk.’ 

‘Give him the one that’s out of date.’

(Alone in his office, and with everyone else distracted, Chandler allows himself a smile at Kent’s offhand addition.)

‘Oi!’

Chandler looks up at Mansell’s outburst to catch sight of Kent’s lopsided grin as he double-checks some of the audit forms, fiddling with a pen in one hand. 

The DC shrugs and switches one of the pages in front of him. ‘Might as well.’

‘The boss will have your heads,’ Miles chimes in from behind his paper, folding down the top half with a dramatic flair that betrays years of practice.

Mansell shrugs and mock toasts them all with his now-full mug. ‘As long as I’ve had a hot drink first.’

'I'd make an example of you,’ Miles grumbles, ‘but you seem to be doing a good enough job of that on your own.'

A part of Chandler suggests that he probably should be laying into Miles for getting back to the sports pages after he’s rolled his eyes at Mansell, since they’re all supposed to suffer this bloody audit and he’s responsible for half the receipts and claims that have made their way onto Chandler’s desk—somehow—but he’ll let it go for an hour or two. They’ve been making decent progress, anyway. Apart from an incident the day before when they’d had a minor glitch in the system (well, they said minor; it took the lad from IT three hours to recover a morning’s work, and by that time Miles was more than a bit miffed), but they’d just about finished cleaning that up. Kent was checking the last of it, making sure whatever it was that had ruined it the first time hadn’t decided to have another go and toy with their numbers all over again. 

Chandler still doesn’t know why he’d offered to do it, even when he’d asked after everyone else had gone home and they’d stayed on until another one of the bulbs went and it had startled Chandler into realising what time it was. Kent had just said he couldn’t stand another day of the rest of them shouting nonsense at the software, and at least he knows how to operate a keyboard with a decent degree of efficiency, so he’d save the sanity of all of them if he just got on with it. The quicker they got it done the quicker they’d be back to proper cases, and he said he knew how much Chandler missed those.

In the end, Chandler had just brushed the back of Kent’s hand with his knuckles and let out a single, gentle laugh that brought a smile to Kent’s face for the next half-hour. 

The incident room had been quiet then, just their occasional bouts on the keyboard and the shuffling of papers. It isn’t particularly loud now, Chandler knows, but there’s an air of business about the place that it doesn’t have at night. Even if they aren’t doing much there’s at least a sort of subconscious need in all of them to feel productive; it’s spilling over into the general air. Chandler glances up just as Mansell passes his door en route to seek out a packet of sugar and, even then, his eyes settle on Kent in the periphery of his vision.

He’s in shirtsleeves now, though his tie’s still done up as Chandler had prescribed that first day on the job, jacket draped over the back of his chair. Chandler had watched him take it off when a pile of papers had gone floating to the ground after an unfortunate incident with an elbow, and it where he’d left it when he’d followed the forms under his desk. Miles takes the piss out of him for it, of course, but even Chandler couldn’t stop himself from feeling proud of the sarcastic look the older man gets for his trouble. At some point between then and now Kent had rolled up his sleeves as well, and occasionally the glint of the face of his watch catches the admittedly dim station light and attracts Chandler’s gaze. (It’s definitely nothing to do with his wrists, or his hands, or the way he’ll bite one side of his bottom lip if he’s thinking.)

This time when Chandler looks up he can’t help but be drawn to the way Kent’s leant back and stretching the tension out from his upper body; he has been sat hunched over that desk for most of the morning, and Chandler had thought he’d noticed a certain tightness to the back of his neck that would probably give him pain later if he ignored it. But that isn’t what catches his eye now. Instead it’s the curve of fabric of his slim-fitting waistcoat and shirt along the curve of his spine with the arch of his back as he pops it, the satisfied sigh that follows.

Kent turns with a more natural looseness to his neck and coincidentally catches Chandler’s eye; it takes him a moment to recover, his face pleasingly empty with surprise, but when he does a slow grin spreads over his face. There’s a slight murkiness to its curve, a smuttiness that comes more naturally to Kent’s expression that he’d ever thought it would, and it brings a hot flush to the back of Chandler’s neck.

Chandler feigns a sudden palpitation that makes him cough, although that's no cover for the fact he's just been watching Kent and they both know it. He turns back to the report still sat under his hand; at least the papers he’s surrounded himself with haven’t noticed.

‘Don’t you dare offer to make me tea after that spectacle,’ Riley says, laughing at something Mansell’s gestured through the warning. ‘I’m never accepting food from you again.’ 

‘You mean you have before?’ Miles barks out a disbelieving laugh. ‘Talk about taking your life into your own hands.’

Mansell shrugs as he walks past Riley on his way back to his desk. ‘You’re not dead yet.’

‘Oh, shush, you.' 

It’s odd to think he doesn’t really want to think about manning an incident room without their familiar voices now, all their banter and their aimless insults. The one part Chandler hadn’t stamped out when he’d arrived, and he’s glad he hadn’t. (Not that he’s sure anyone could. Miles is a stubborn man at the best of times.)

‘Sir?’ 

Chandler looks up; Kent hovers at the door of his office, seemingly hesitant, but the way he’s gripped the frame suggests a familiarity that Chandler’s not surprised to see. He’s not even worried about it; Miles might have looked up and then covered his knowing smirk with his paper, but the others couldn’t care less. They’re too busy trying to surreptitiously throw balled-up coffee-shop receipts at each other.

‘Just yesterday’s files.’ He unfolds his arm and holds out the folder as he steps closer to the desk. ‘They’re up to date.’

‘Oh, good. Any problems?’ 

‘Just an odd section near the end, but I think that had more to do with Miles’ terrible handwriting than anything else.’ Kent grins briefly as Chandler flicks through the pages with a perfunctory glance before adding them to the pile at the corner of his desk that’s only just starting to grow satisfactorily. ‘You couldn’t even decipher it, sir. It’s hell to transcribe.’

Chandler chuckles, a low sound that might just be between them. ‘I don’t doubt that.’

‘Anyway, Riley mentioned earlier that she’s just about finished with her lot, so I’d keep an eye out for that.’

‘Thanks,’ Chandler says, the edges of his smile wavering as he wonders if even that’s too familiar. ‘Is that all?’

Kent nods, all his professionalism slotting straight back into place. ‘For the moment, sir.’

Chandler nods a sort of awkward dismissal, but he’s sure it only feels that way. They’ve been doing this too long and too well for anything that like to give them away now. There might still be a little part of him that missed the echo of a smile on Kent’s mouth or the glint in his eye that only happens every so often.

But they’ve got time for that, haven’t they? 

The thought keeps him sat there, eyes fixed on the last signature and date line on the current form as Kent removes his hands from his pockets and turns on his heel, heading back out into the scrum. Chandler’s just about to breathe a sigh of relief—or is it repressed frustration?—when he realises the steps stop far too abruptly to have taken the DC very far at all.

He looks up and Kent’s back where he was a mere moment ago—and still a very welcome face, as far as Chandler’s concerned.

‘Actually, um—’ Kent pauses, the hitch in his voice much more natural than the way he’s twisting his fingers together in a half-forgotten nervous gesture. He catches Chandler’s eye with an apprehensive expression. ‘Do you fancy a coffee, sir?’

Chandler doesn’t really have to think about it anymore. Miles would get on to him later if he didn’t break for lunch, anyway, but he knows that’s not the reason he smiles back. It’s more complicated than that—and simpler. That’s them in a nutshell, isn’t it? So, instead, he nods and twists the cap back onto his pen. 

‘Certainly.’

The slow creep of Kent’s wide smile shouldn’t be allowed, especially not in the station, but Chandler can’t help but mirror it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, here we are, at the end of the last chapter. I hope it didn't disappoint! 
> 
> At risk of sounding like a broken record, I have to say thank you so, so much to all of you who've been leaving comments, kudos, and other bits of support here and there throughout the time I've been posting this fic. The best I can say is that it's been so wonderful and brilliant and I couldn't ask for a better fandom to be a part of. I've had a great time, and I hope you have too. :)


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